BM for Life...Huntard?Follow

After reading up on all of the different forums and informational websites about the different specs, shot rotations, pets, gear, stat weights and DPS charts, I still can't find the desire to switch from Beast Mastery. I understand that as we are right now we'll never (rarely maybe) top the damage charts against other Hunters in SV or MM, and that Blizzard has stated that they are OK with BM having lower DPS because it's a simpler playstyle for PvE DPS Hunters, but that doesn't change the way I want to play my class or feel about my character.

SV-MM > BM is the current state of things right now depending on gear and encounter from what I've read, but do people forget that BM adds 3% damage to every person in the raid? regardless of where they happen to be in relation to the Hunter *cough* Retadin *cough*? Do they realize that a BM pet can stun and hold attention for a pretty good amount of time with the proper care? and even if they die, WE might lose DPS but we may have saved the healer or other DPS from death and it only takes us a few seconds to recover and we're back in the DPS race (we're last probably, but whatever).

I am rambling at this point but I've always felt that too many people focused too much on e-peen and DPS numbers and didn't take into account the other utilities you might be offering on the side besides just high personal DPS. I have pride as a BM Hunter and know full well that I won't top the meters, but I'll love my class, know how to play it well and contribute in other ways that people may not notice but I feel good about... besides there's nothing really quite as satisfying as unloading all your CD's on BW and tearing the hell out of whatever you wanted to kill with a big red beast chewing it's face off.... and you walking away from a 3+ man elite quest target without so much as a scratch.

Just my 2 cents, but does anyone else feel the same as me?

This is the big one. Do what YOU enjoy.

Just expect to be called out for it a lot. My guild forces respec's of anyone not 100% in the spec the guild wants. While it sounds prickish, it optimizes the group makeup and there is this thing called "dual spec" that all 80's should have.

I pug'd TotC25 Monday night on my Mage alt and on Anub we pulled in a hunter. When he arrived we saw he was BM.
We lol'd and put him on Frost Spheres. Voila, a spot.

Overall though just do what you want. If you don't care about min/max or being in serious groups it's all about having fun. I LOVE BM (my hunter is only 31 though so that love will only grow) so I don't know that I will do SV/MM. Hunter is among the more fun classes.

Yeah, after hearing about stuff like that Browning, it really makes me wonder about Hunters and the specs. Yeah I understand that MM and SV can put out higher DPS numbers than BM, but BM Hunters by no means put out bad DPS numbers.

So now my question is this though...for optimal DPS would it be better to go 3/3 Ferocious Inspiration or 3/3 Catlike Reflexes? or a mix of both? and what would the damage differences be? I'll keep looking for the answers myself on other forums just wondering if any knew off the top of their head.

Yea Katchii, I just ran some numbers on femaledwarf and my Survival spec will net me 7.2k but my BM is at 6.6k. These are "perfect world" numbers of course. If you and your raid doesn't mind the 600DPS loss then you can play what you like.

Definitely a valid point. Really though, it depends on the needs of your raid. All 3 hunter specs bring a very worthwhile buff at this point:

BM - Ferocious Inspiration
SV - Replenishment
MM - Trueshot Aura

So depending on your group composition and the specific fight, one or the other might be more useful to bring to the table.

Course, then there's the "other" things you can bring. MM can bring a MS effect. BM is more dependent on the pet - if you're not able to keep your pet up your DPS will go in the tank very quickly. Then you have the whole burst/CD vs. steady DPS specs - I know this is a big deal on rogue, assuming there are differences for hunters as well.

How big of a deal is it if your one spec does 8% more damage over five minutes (500 DPS loss) say , but your 2nd spec can put down an extra 20% (1200 extra DPS) for 30 seconds of any given fight?

Hopefully that's something that you talk about with your guild and raid leader - flexibility and adaptability in a raider is a great thing. Stubbornness is a bad thing.

BM > Sv would be an easier dual spec in terms of gear. Shot rotations for Sv or MM aren't too far apart, they just have a few more specials than BM.

Priority (to the best of my knowledge)
Sv: Kill - Black Arrow - Explosive - Serpent Sting - Aimed/Multi - Steady

have fun with it, it makes fights a little more fun!

Explosive Shot replaces Arcane. They trigger the same cooldown, just like Multi-Shot and Aimed Shot. (And even if they didn't, Arcane Shot uses up Lock and Load procs--not good!)

That's by design. Blizzard wants players to have to think about the buttons they push and in what order. Just mashing one button isn't a meaningful display of skill to them (and I agree; plus, it's boring ).

Edited, Nov 5th 2009 4:12pm by Norellicus

Its called feral DPS.

Numbers for those that can do it good are insane. If you can't watch 8 timers/procs and pay attention to the encounter not so much.

The eight are: Mangle, Rake, Rip, Savage Roar, Tigers Fury, Berserk, Omen of Clarity, Feral Faerie Fire. The DPS is really good if you can keep them all running. Falls off fast if you can't.

Plus as a kicker for bonus DPS you can weave in Ferocious Bite but at the peril of dropping buffs/debuffs.

Good point, I haven't played with the SV spec much yet since I haven't been instancing at all and my wolf isn't lvl 80 yet, but you're absolutely correct, LnL allows for 2 explosives without triggering the GCD which means that it won't be on cooldown after the second shot so a third one will still be able to go... good to know, can't wait to start actually putting all of these tips and information to good use blowing **** up in instances.

Keep the info coming, but I'll be looking stuff up myself, because that's what people who want to be good are supposed to do right? ;D

Thanks!

LnL procs are the oasis of peace in the button-spamming storm of the SV rotation.
ExS > wait > ExS > Wait > ExS.

it's great :)

It's not.
You only need to wait 0.5 seconds after the explosive shot.
The GCD is 1.5 seconds.
Thus for every shot you weave in between you delay your explosive shot 1 seconds, and that ends up costing you dps.

The only thing worth weaving in between is Kill Shot.

It's not lag, it's travel time.
All shots have a bit of delay so it looks more like they are actually flying towards your target and you don't instantly see the damage while the arrow/spell is still in the air.

So while you might not see the last tick of explosive shot until you fire your aimed/steady, your next explosive shot won't land until a second later.