BM/Surv build?Follow

Cat can tank many things. I've tanked adds and mobs with Morris in Underbog. I don't even have the BM advantages your wife does. I can't tank bosses with him except in extreme circumstances, but adds, he lasts a long time against them, freeing up your CC for other things. In UB you have to be careful only with a couple of bosses, Hungarfen <sp?> comes to mind. If you spare a thought for the exploding schrooms and hit them with an arcane shot, your pet will off-tank just fine.

If I've been reading these posts right, from about everyone, just about any decently built spec can do the normal instances and be successful. Where your spec really comes into play is the full end-game raids and heroic instances.

I intend to have a few pets for this purpose, and maybe find a spec that will be passible for end-game non-pvp work. Still working on that one though.

Caveat: I'm MM spec, so I'm not sure if things differ for BM spec.

Comment: My experience in the level 70 instances (Shattered Halls, Shadow Labs, Steam Vaults, Tempest Keep - Mech, Bot, Arc) is that the pet can't sustain off-tanking for very long. What was doable in the level 60s instances became very marginal in the level 70 instances. I experienced it with both a bear and a cat. If the either/or is between ice trap and pet tank, then trap should win every time. There are some pulls in the level 70 instances where a hunter may need to both ice trap and use the pet for off-tank, but in general ice trap should be first option for CC.

I wouldn't recommend BM/Surv for anything beyond soloing. But for soloing it is bloody godly. I ran with it myself for quite a while, and it was excellent. I was unbeatable. There was no mob that could defeat me, and I flew through packs as if they were nothing. High trap viability makes for longer CC. Longer CC allows you to chaintrap far more efficiently. Keeping one mob completely out of the fight, along with BM being able to take alot of mobs at once as it is, makes for Godly grinding and high quest rate.

But in an instance? Naw, it would simply lower our DPS too much to be viable.

I went SV not BM, didn't like BM too much :)

I am needing to gear my hunter the rest of the way for SV, but when that is all said and done, sure Ill post about it.

I am liking the 30% Crit right off the get go though :P

Since you said she's new to freezing, maybe have her read this: http://www.tkasomething.com/freezetrap.php

Well. first step would be to please puctuate your comment, it really is hard on my old eyes.

In Outland, you can usually expect a minimum of 3 mobs per pull, some have 4-5. Tank takes one, sheep another, still leaves at least one more to CC. Rank 1 starts at 10 seconds, Rank 3 of Freezing Trap lasts 20 seconds without extra talents or gear. Using the 2-trap method, that should be more than enough time to down the first target.

I think your friends were on the right track about using traps instead of pet to cover your wife's end of the CC responsibilities. Up to a certain point in Outland dungeons, pets are so-so. The closer you get to 70, it becomes very apparent that while a pet's armor can still reach impressive numbers (my boar had just over 13k armor at level 70 when I was BM spec), their HP unfortunately doesn't scale at all. I think my boar topped out at 6k HP or so. As well, pets don't get any buffs (that I recall) to their defense rating, making them more prone to crits than a tank class.

Also, it becomes tedious (if even possible) to spec magic resistances appropriately for the dungeons you're running, so what often ends up happening is that your pet has the armor to mitigate a fair amount of damage, but crits and offensive magic have a tendancy to put them down in incredibly short order. If you're on the ball with the heals, you can prolong the life of a pet but the trouble with that is that your heals generate threat. Trying to keep a pet alive long enough to keep a situation under control can sometimes put the healer in serious jeapordy of having a mob turn on them and carve them a new face.

The benefit to ice traps is that they can't be killed and it leaves your wife's pet available to put on the tank mob (with Growl auto-cast turned off :P) for a little added dps.

When it comes time to run Heroics with your group, the practice your wife gets with chain trapping mobs now will be of enormous benefit. Heroic trash mobs will rip through a Hunter pet in extremely short order. Tanks in Heroic dungeons/raids usually aim for at least +140 to their defense rating so they can't be critically hit. They have armor ratings on par (or a fair bit over) what a high-armor BM Hunter's pet would have and typically almost twice the HP, and even then they take a pounding.



You can get by quite handily with a BM/MM build and not necessarily need extended trap duration/reduced cooldowns in a lot of situations. As already mentioned by someone else here, a big key to being able to successfully chain trap mobs for non-SV Hunters is to have the first trap down with trap timers off cooldown before the pull. As soon as the mob goes into the trap, another trap can be put down close (but not too close :P) to the mob. The first trap breaks, mob goes into the second trap. If for whatever reason the party isn't ready for your wife's mob when the second trap breaks, 10 seconds or so of kiting (ie. Wing Clip and/or Concussive Shot) will enable your wife to get the mob into a third trap. Also, in non-heroic instances, a BM Hunter's pet can often quite easily buy the extra time needed between trap cooldowns if the situation requires it.

I would highly recommend that you and your wife look into getting her at least 2 pieces of the Beast Lord set once you guys are at (or very near) level 70. The last boss in Steamvaults (level 70 Coilfang Reservoir instance) has two pieces of the set in his loot table (he dropped both for me on one kill). Not only are the Beast Lord pieces very nice in base stats/socket options, the 2 piece bonus is a 4 second reduction in trap cooldowns. It might not sound like much, but it's a huge bonus. The other pieces drop from the last bosses in Shattered Halls, Mechanar, and Botanica. In my experience, of the four dungeons where Beast Lord set pieces can drop, Steamvaults is the easiest...it's just an added bonus that you can get two pieces from the same boss.

Edited, Oct 27th 2007 1:47am by AureliusSir

I am a BM/MM spec and I have been CC in every instance I have been in,more so now then before,now I am pretty good at chain trapping, I have had people in my guild and PUGS say the same in instances I have done with them. If you have a good marker, trapping shouldn't be a problem usually the leader marks traps as a blue square so you know a head of time which mob you will trap to keep out of the way.

What I found to work pretty good is lay a trap down before they pull that way the cooldown starts ticking, hit the mob your trapping(i use distracting shot cause that has worked for me) then your cooldown should be almost done when he hits the trap,then cause you know you have the mobs attention lay a trap right in between the mob and you again so when the trap breaks he hits the one you have already put down.Usually by the second trap your group should be ready to kill your trapped mob if not just repeat.

I mean if she likes here build like I do this is a way to keep it w/o unlearning your skills and paying the money.I haven't since I started so if I ever do it will only be 5 gold. Cats are more for Dps not very good tankers at all,Now i'm not saying they can't tank at times but to rely on your pet as a tank, not going to happen. I use my pet to off tank the mobs that somehow seem to get by a trap when needed most of the time he is just DPS.

Edit: LOL Aurelius sir I didn't read your post till after I posted and you pretty much said the same thing i did.

Edit 2: misspelled your name Aurelius, Sorry.

Edited, Oct 29th 2007 10:00am by amayu