SV Works, {Expletive Deleted}
Our 25-man naxx was not a guild-run, but it wasn’t a PuG either. We filled in for a guild who needed a solid ranged DPS. Yes, they took us anyway.
Four Horsemen, foshizzle, and our 2/18/51 with Hobbes kicked @ss. The DPS-number isn’t huge, of course, because of all the pauses inherent in the fight. But our total-damage… we brought the rain, baby. The number 8 hunter is BM, and outgears us. The nerf is totally real.
Thaddius was a tougher fight; we were still fighting our natural BM-inclinations to watch our pet too much and wait for his cooldowns. As it was, we forgot to manually pop Gift of the Wild. /fail
Notice how all the DoTers and melee classes do fabulously on this fight; we have a much longer way to run. Our DPS is nothing shabby, but we’re out-geared by this guild in 80% of the cases, plus we couldn’t put Sniper Training to good use. Yes, this is a fabulous boss to trap-dance… but we forgot. /double-fail
Back to our regular guild, and this was the only boss for which we have data. We totally forgot to stay at 30 yard-range or our numbers would be higher. This boss was the first real test of our SV-skills, actually. How did we really do?
We are pleased with the numbers. Look at those crits-percentages! How that Arcane Shot got in there… well we have an idea. /bashful
Loot at our poor Hobbes. He used to do 40% of our total damage, now he’s barely doing 17%. It’s a sad, sad day at BRK WorldWide Amalgamated.
Edit: Title changed. When we write a post after midnight, all spelling-rules are eliminated.
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Well done BRK, looks like your experimenting with the Survival spec has gone well. I feel for the BM Hunter, I’m that guy now too.
Wangratz on your good performance in Nax. I’m interested to hear your analysis on raiding with survival spec in your next podcast.
Well guess I will be the only raiding BM hunter out there.
*shrugs* Oh well.
hi BRK
I feel SV is strong on single long hp target but really bad in multitarget trash pull. how do you address that?
yep this spec rock im using it now as well and most of the time i ahve probs with using sniper training as well
Same conclusions here. Loque sadly in stable and a new wolf, called Ezechiele, but still on top of dps list, with similar numbers. It’s like a class-change, a game pretty different.
Bol
I’m really enjoying the Survival tree, it’s a get change. My numbers are great and the mana regen for the 10’s is nice. I just can’t get use to how slow I feel. The movement speed is just frustrating.
I too, joined the 2/18/51 build.
Really great build, I’m pulling awesome numbers and I just love trap dancing!
Well done BRK!
You managed to post true and honest words, while not giving one milimeter in to your true BM feelings. I salute you, for this is exactly how I feel. I can do Surv, I do do Surv, but want BM… just at this current cost.
Coka, no Surv is definately not bad on trash. I have found that while BM has a hard time with three-four mob pulls, where it is hard to determine if Volley is better in general, Surv shines. Multi, Explosive Trap, Explosive Shot each target, perhaps even sting a little *gasp*, then Multi and finally Volley. I have found that to do superior damage and DPS compared to just pure Volley. And in large mobgroups, well the Surv Volley is just stronger due to more AP (Expose Weakness can proc from Volley meaning it is refreshed at every tick).
Compared to MM Surv will lack some AoE capacity, that’s true. But it isn’t really that much and it isn’t even that important.
“You managed to post true and honest words, while not giving one milimeter in to your true BM feelings. I salute you, for this is exactly how I feel. I can do Surv, I do do Surv, but want BM… just at this current cost.”
Meh… can’t edit, page just won’t show up.
It should read:
“You managed to post true and honest words, while not sacrificing one sliver of your true BM feelings. I salute you, for this is exactly how I feel. I can do Surv, I do do Surv, but want BM… just NOT at this current cost.”
BRK,
Since September of 2006, i’ve been BM. It was, to me, what a Hunter should be. A class that can effectively use ranged weapons and has not just a pet, but a companion. They aren’t simply something you enslave or capture and put to work for you. It’s a give and take relationship with Hunters. To me, this is the most important part of playing our class.
Sadly, the patch hit and BM got nerfed. I’ve read posts of GC saying (paraphrased) “You can say you have the numbers and spreadsheets, but info from an actual boss fight would be way more useful to us. If BM is low, we’ll buff it in the next patch”. I feel that the numbers you’ve come up with would be evidence enough. Perhaps tonight’s results and some results of the same fights post patch as BM would be sufficient.
I am currently using your spec as are many people who read your blog. I wanted nothing more than stay BM…but I didn’t want to be the gimp being dragged through Heroics that I could come first or second on the week before. Now that i’m SV, the DPS is up. I’m still being beaten out by Ret Pallys and the occasional DK, but i’m usually holding second or third on the charts now. Better than fourth, I suppose. :
The biggest tragedy of all this? I got my spirit beast a week ago, and now he’s just sitting in the stable waiting for uncle Blizz to make it worth him coming out and play again.
Mm, those are sad numbers for BMers. I really suspect that Blizz didn’t want to nerf BM that much though, I wouldn’t be surprised if they tweak BM up a bit again, and possibly even tweak SV downwards.
It’s sad for BM in the mean time, though.
Welcome to the 2/18/51 club, BRK! Hope you enjoy it. Remember though, trap dancing is harder now due to the new 30 second cooldown on LnL. Right, our traps have a cooldown of 30 seconds, but that doesn’t mean LnL is ready when traps are – because LnL CD starts when the trap procs, and not when the trap is layed down.
GJ on keeping the community informed BRK.
Mazil, if you are right, which i pessimistically suspect, then it’s really bad mojo having people spec-dance like that. On the other hand, and on a more positive note, perhaps Blizz are working on the creation of 3 ranged dps-viable builds.
3 Builds where the only difference is play-style. Is such a thing even possible?
I’ve been too terrified to trap-dance on Thaddius, as I’m afraid I’ll creep in too close and trigger a shock from the opposite-polarity group on the other side. Is there any good way to find out how far out a boss’ hit box extends? Is melee-range also trap-drop range, or do I have to be closer than that to ensure it gets stepped on properly?
Even on bosses where boss-proximity isn’t much of a safety hazard, I’d still like to minimize the amount of time spent running back and forth in favor of spending more time shooting things.
Looks like it’s time for a name change, as there is no longer any Big and Red kitty anymore. *tears up* *sniffles*
I resisted the urge and didn’t respec to survival. After a horridly bad showing in my 25 man Naxx on tuesday (lag didn’t help anyone’s numbers, least of all mine), I merely tweaked my BM spec from 54/17, to a nice round 51/20. I took advantage of the increased RAP from the int on my gear and it seems to have been enough.
I’m not #1 from saturday’s run, but I come in, in the top 5 for most of the bosses (We won’t talk about Heigan. Heigan can go diaf!). I’m content with that. I have no need to take #1 away from the Deathknights. >.>
Until I consistently come in worse than most of the DPS, you can keep your survival specs. BM is my game.
comment about Thadius – “we have a much longer way to run”
Why don’t you stand same place as melee?
So, sadly. I’ve respecced to 1/18/52 just 2 weeks after obtaining Loque, and i’ve got my shot rotation almost down, but since i went with sniper training, im still having an issue judging my distance from the boss, does anyone have a good addon or meter to judge my yardage from the mob im fighting?
I am clinging onto my BM spec for dear life, but all I read about now is all these BM hutners going SV
*clings onto spirit beasty*
@central.. I use a mod called nudge but it doesn’t give any numbers in yards. Just out of range, in range and melee indicators.
How far exactly is out of range?
@central Range Display is the mod you want. Gives the distance in numbers so you know when you are above 30 yards. A lot better than Nudge.
I’m not seeing any increase in DPS as a survival but I’m wondering if that is because I don’t like trappdancing or if there is a haste cap that must be reached on gear before the DPS increase as survival compared to BM?
BRK, Don’t you mean expletive deleted, not explecitive deleted? Or is it another cool new word of yours?
Hi There!
Have You seen the “new” changes in BM and SV trees? You will be very happy to see it… just take a look at old one in wowhead and then in official site of wow. Pets get buffed back
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/talents/wrath/hunter/talents.html
Something is wierd, this talent tree is new one or old one?
I’m bugging…
Insert Patchwerk DPS to continue. Everything else has one gimmick or another which prevent fair DPS comparison.
[...] BRK has turned. Doesn’t that mean he’s not BRK anymore? Hesston over at Auto Shots has gone SV now [...]
I’m also a long-time (actually all-time, til now) BM hunter forced to convert to stay raid-viable. I gave it my best effort with my BM spec, but after the last 10 and 25 man Naxx runs (where I was beaten out by shadow priests and less-geared locks) I realized I had to change.
I made one primary macro change that has been helpful: instead of having KC/Bestial Wrath/Call of the Wild bound together, I bound KC/Rapid Fire/CoW together for my burst key (I found that BW and RF would usually conflict with one another when mashed so I had to split them up). The new key in the same slot made it easy for my BM-trained fingers to bring a strong burst when needed… but I keep expecting to hear the BW roar and I feel a twinge when I don’t. :/
@Central
I am using Hunter Range. I quite like it because it’s unobtrusive.
When i click the 2/18/51 spec link it shows me a 2/15/51 spec. Where did you put the three points.. into improved stings?
Yes, Improved Stings. Link updated.
I am too loving the SV tree, although can help but feel guilty not having that synergy with my pet I so adored. I miss Beastial Wrath to get out of CC (I’m never gonna get that Nexus achievement now!), I miss Intimidation for when I creep up on Horde and man do i miss Serpent Swiftness.
The plus side is that I’m experiencing my class to it’s fullest now and in doing so I believe I am becoming a more rounded and balanced player – you know BRK loves keeping everything in balance.
As for trap dancing, this macro is your friend.
#showtooltips
/castsequence reset=10 Immolation Trap, Disengage
Run up to the target and mash it! It’ll drop the trap [I have the same trap but Explosive Trap for trash pulls] and then throw you back to range. This also works great with Frost Traps in PvP.
Keep up the great work BRK – BM may have died in the charts, but it hasn’t dies in our hearts!
[...] bête toujours. Il y a beaucoup de réactions sur le nouveau patch de blizzard. le 3.0.8. une des conséquences est le manque de dommages que [...]
It’s true, it really does work. I went ahead and respeced right after the patch, and it really isn’t bad. I know you feel bad for Hobbes, but I look at it like I’m giving my pets a much-deserved rest. They get to sit back for a couple months and not work so hard, and someday when BM gets buffed again, they’ll go back to ripping faces off.
F’n pathetic.I got killed yesterday because I didn’t have the DPS to take out TWO things that I used to be able to kill six of at a time. Lost 500 dps according to recount, doing the same things i was doing before the nerf nuke, without changing anything at all.
(has her Devilsaur Gojira take a large steaming dump on Blizzard… and hangs herself on a hook, waiting for beastmaster to be useful. Feeds him coffee, brussel sprouts and beans, so he can add a pile on spam-free. Seems to block legit posts more often than spam…)
Time to work on the paladin, I guess.
“F’n pathetic.I got killed yesterday because I didn’t have the DPS to take out TWO things that I used to be able to kill six of at a time. Lost 500 dps according to recount, doing the same things i was doing before the nerf nuke, without changing anything at all.”
If you haven’t started using Arcane Shot in your rotation as BM you can’t really complain about your DPS dropping that much. You doing nothing to adapt to the changes is not Blizz’s fault.
BRK, have you thought about supplying these numbers to Blizz? I know it probably wouldn’t do much good, but the one thing I keep reading from GC is that as much as the hunter community SAYS that BM is way behind SV, no one ever has any numbers to back that up. I’d say that you numbers from the Four Horseman fight do exactly that. They keep admitting that BM is probably “slightly” behind SV, but not enough to make a huge difference. Well I’d say over 1000DPS is a huge difference!
Granted, they’ll probably come up with some excuse as to why your report isn’t valid in their eyes or some crap like that, but at least others in the hunter community who don’t read this blog would see these numbers.
Hey BRK – I think your numbers bring up a different question: Did Blizz raise the gear stats too much in BC and WOTLK? I think yes. 60% crit rate is just not right. What happens in the next expansion? Crits become more common that regular hits? I think everyone should be nerfed…..
Shador
BRK: you planning on specing MM to get a full spectrum of the effects on each of the trees? I would find that to be very useful. At the moment, if I am going to be respeccing out of BM, it would be to MM. SV is not my idea of what a hunter should be…..
Nice numbers… I’m wondering on Thaddius how far back you stand. I know that you’ll do some extra damage from range, but it seems like you’d do more damage if you were standing close enough to the rest of the group to get the +110% or +120% polarity charges. In my experience, stacking those really get the juice going over spreading out to avoid damage. You’ll also have less running-time as you go around the boss. (Plus an opportunity to drop a trap as you get into melee range!)
A thought occurred to me, and since my hunter is only 75 I cannot test this myself.
I’ve seen a few arguments for and against trap dancing. The ‘for’ side saying you get more control over the procs and you get the damage off of the trap itself. The ‘against’ side saying you get just as many PPM with stings, and staying at range is safer, give you more auto shots and puts sniper training to better use.
My question is: Could freezing arrow be used to trigger LoL on a boss? I know you cannot trap a boss and when the boss hits the trap it would register as immune, but I don’t know yet if the trap has to work, or just be triggered (immune being the difference between a resist and something just not being trap-able).
I’m not really sure if this would be advantageous, just curious if it would work.
Also, when did you pick up Aimed Shot? In your dancing video you had two points in GftT, now you have AS. How are you utilizing it?
@Andris: Exactly.
They couldn’t make it impossible for melee to do any damage on this fight, so if you’re on the opposite side of the boss as your counter charged colleagues, you will be fine. A hunter could stand just behind the melee and get in on that awesome damage increase buff. Also, just running through the boss is easier than around, but I’m sure someone will tell me I’m wrong for doing so. Just a hopefully helpful tip from your neighborhood rogue
Curious if the BM hunter was using arcane shot and other curiosities to justify a massive DPS difference. 500 DPS was your own personal difference, here we’re seeing a 1000 difference.
For an easy way to check Sniper Training distance, put Throw on your bar. If throw is out of range you’re over 30 yards away.
It was a nice post and an interesting hunter guide movie about “trap dancing” and the 2/18/51 spec. I am happy for all those who enjoy the SV spec…
However there is a larger issue at play here that goes beyond balancing of classes, and this especially in light of the fact that by switching to survival spec BRK managed to stay on top of the dps meter – that is this. Namely, the attitude of the 800 pound Blizzard Gorilla is starting to show again. What I mean by this is that Developers have a tendency to want to tell their customers how THEY (the developers) want the players to play the game rather then the other way around.
Consider what happened with Warhammer Online, the developers at Mythic wanted the game to be about RvR and not scenarios (battlegrounds in World of Warcraft) and the players thought different. Even with incentives Mythic still hasn’t got it right.
Now enter Activision/Blizzard and some developer or other Blizzard Pundit who decides (whether arbitrarily or not) that players who play the game WILL play the survival spec if they want to be effective…whether they like it or not. That’s just chutzpa. The attitude works as along as you are the 800 pound gorilla on the block – but even 800 pound Blizzard Gorillas age. It’s sad enough to see marketing turn in to something similar to trying to merchandise a summer “blockbuster” movie without having how someone else wants me to play the game (and here I am pointing at Blizzard not BRK who does a great job with his blog and show) shoving how they want me to play down my throat.
Julie Whitefeather
I don’t think Blizzard is being that sinister. They’re just changing specs. You don’t have to change from BM if you don’t want to. I began my wow career as a survival spec and I never changed. I like it, I know how to use it. I like the idea of using my pet and being able to stay alive for a bit if my dear sweet companion meets an untimely end. Don’t worry, BM will get looked at and it will be on top of the charts again. Why not take this time to slum it in the bastard….er, survival tree?
BRK, have you done any testing with changing your pet talents around? Can a change make that much of a difference? I was messing around with some dummies the other day. I was switching between the gorilla and the wasp with mixed results. Just curious…
If people are going to supply GC with numbers, it has to be whole WWS reports instead of screenies. And for all we know, the full reports may well show that hunter X wasn’t using everything in his arsenal to keep his DPS higher than it was. Was he being an autoshot afk huntard during that fight? Was he hitting bestial wrath everytime it was up or timed with Heroism? Did he put arcane shot into his rotation?
What consumables was hunter X using vs what BRK was/wasn’t using?
The numbers could well show that the hunters used as proof the numbers are vastly different instead of small, may well prove otherwise. Due to lack of consumables, good shot rotations, and full use of their spec abilities. Meh.
[...] Esa responsabilidad es a la que apelo despues de leer el siguiente post, SV Works, {Expletive deleted}. [...]
I did my first 10man raid as Survival this weekend
Overall not bad and as we got through a couple wings I was finding the playstyle easier. Some comments earlier on trash… I felt like the increased problems were mostly a result of the volley nerf and not the spec change (we also gave the MT the night off and the subs were learning some of the pulls, that Military wing trash tended to come in groups of 6-8 with another pat right when we all started to breathe easy… somehow we got 6 staves at once and another pull included 3 gargoyles but I digress)
That said, I understand some of the healers complaints with raiding now, even with several mods showing me timers for buffs/abilities, I felt like I was mostly watching my actionbars and not the fight on the screen (both boring in missing the fight and annoying in that there were several opportunities to help another players with a trap/distracting shot or whatnot that I didnt catch till the window had passed). Not particularly fun.
I have played the spec just over a week and only spent about an hour on the training dummies and a couple heroics before the raid (more than half of that was just trying to get the actionbars reorganized)… I am sure more practice and maybe an extra mod will make this all simpler down the road. Still, in most fights the slightly better geared mages in the guild were beating me without too much effort while picking up extra duties (want to trade a very good warlock for a feral druid in our regular make up =P )
So for someone like myself who unfortunately doesn’t get to raid very often is this SV build still viable or should I stick with the BM build?
noob question .. What are you using to get those charts?
@ Galamar – If you are still soloing/farming, BM is still fine, providing you are using Arcane and speccing for Imp Arcane. You should also be fine if you are just filling in on raids occasionally. But if the raid is counting on your dps, that’s another story..
Thanks for the info Fearstalker.
@Theaah and Fearstalker: I AM using arcane shot. I always have. I run out of mana faster, but I USED to be able to kill things. Ever since aspect of the viper gave mana back based on shooting stuff, all I had to do to get mana back was hit that and rapid fire, with something like shadow of lothaeb to cover the lowered damage, and I was back to enough mana to continue.
Now, fighting the same things under the same circumstances, I get killed because I lost so much DPS that I can’t handle two at a time of things i used to round up six or more of.
@Thrush: it’s called Wow Web Stats, at http://wowwebstats.com/
And Post-Free eats ANOTHER message…
I have a theory.
Way back when Blizz first said Hunters were doing too much DPS, they were right, in a way. So they decided, for reasons which certainly seemed good but contained a fundamental problem, to nerf Hunter DPS.
As 3.0.8 got closer and closer, though, the problem I mentioned above became clear – BM Hunters are fantastic in bad gear, because they have a fairly simple play style and high base damage. A BM Hunter, naked, does a lot more than a Warrior naked, for example.
Other classes started to close in, and a 15% nerf became clearly too much. Instead of admitting that this was the case, though, Blizzard decided to keep their nerfs and give us a beefed-up Survival spec instead. In a way, this is a good thing – Survival scales better with gear than BM does, and in my personal opinion is a more interesting spec. In another way, though, this is a bad thing. Whenever one spec dominates all others in a pure-DPS class, something is wrong.
@ Rocklub: Freezing arrow and freezing trap do not proc Lock and Load. Frost trap does at the moment, and it ignores the CD of Lock and Load (meaning it is possible to get back-to-back LnL procs) actually so it’s most likely a bug that will be fixed. (Either by making Frost trap not trigger LnL or make it observe the CD.)
“A BM Hunter, naked, does a lot more than a Warrior naked, for example.”
The pet probably would have something to do with that. Along with a Warrior not being able to do anything without a weapon or shield.
@Theaah Just had LnL proc on a Freezing Trap no less than two times tonight in Nexus HC
Just thought i’d say.
/peace
From BM to SV in 25 Arch and this: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3491/3231219026_792aa270c6.jpg?v=0