BM Be Damned :)Follow

Kidding with that title really, I was a Beast Mastery hunter from the beginning and loved it. But I think I loved it because I knew of nothing else. I am here to say that since switching to a Survival/Marksman spec, 0/21/40, I have been having the time of my life! Just a lot of fun and so much versatility. Two weeks ago (I think) I made the switch. I re-gemmed all my gear, scrounged up numerous enchants and got myself to 758 AGI unbuffed. Switched a few pieces of gear around too and even though my actual +AP dropped by a lot, all the extra agi actually boosted my total AP to above what it had been previously as BM. My dps average has dropped a little but so far I am finding no ill effects of this.

Maybe I'm just bragging about my spec, I hope not. On the advice of a few from this forum I skipped the last two talents from the Survival spec, Master Tactician and Readiness, for the sake of scattershot and Mortal Shots in Marksman and it's been a good choice thus far (my original plan required a minimum of 46 points into Survival to get to Readiness and also have everything I wanted out of the spec). What I am liking the best out of this so far is that my ability to perform crucial tasks in both PvP and PvE has been noticeably increased while my ability to at least come in the top 3 of my Recount has not been affected at all. Yea my pet is a bit weak but I've gotten used to that already.

The utility seriously is amazing. A few times in the last few days I have found myself in dire 2 on 1 situations in BGs that, as BM, would have called for me to just roll up in the fetal position and hope for a quick res at the GY. Not anymore. Typically now I am able to fend them off and delay their killing of me by up to a minute or more. Usually I still die but that's to be expected when you're outnumbered, but at least I can give them as much as Hell as possible in the process. It's quite amusing, between scattershot, Wyvern Sting, Imp. Wing Clip and traps I can keep them at bay for quite a while. So far it has performed excellently in arena too.

And the crits. OMG the crits! Sitting just shy of 28% critical strike rating (27.95% to be precise) and it's really nice, especially in instances. Most fights I am able to maintain an Expose Weakness debuff for a good 3/4 or more of every target which I like to tell myself helps in the killing process. By how much I'm not sure but if I understand it right, 25% of 758 agi is 189. If every Expose Weakness adds 189 AP to all attacking, I'd say that's a pretty nice helper. Not groundbreaking, but nothing to laugh at either.

So like, I just wanted to spill my feelings about this new spec I had no idea really existed before. And I can never go back I think, it has everything I ever wanted.

Well, tavarde, I expect with your respec all the hunters in your guild will see a rise in their DPS in raids, too, unless there was already a survival hunter. Honestly, I don't expect you to out-DPS a BM hunter (especially since you're the CC SV spec, not the DPS SV spec of 5/20/36 or 0/20/41) but feel happy that you are probably increasing the overall DPS of the hunters and melee by an amount greater than the difference between SV and BM spec. You do, however, have the advantage of being able to DPS fairly well without a pet, so on fights where you wouldn't want a pet - you don't need one (and your mana efficiency is up the wazoo).

Just remember you may have to work harder at soloing, or slow down. SV means weak pet and lots of crits...in other words the equivilant of an undergeared tank and an aggro-hungry DPS. That's a big reason why I'm not SV specced myself (that and my gear would suck for it) - because I spend very little time in instances atm.

I believe the good rogues say that the benefits of evasion outweigh the Overpowers by quite a margin. You evade white hits, all specials except OP of course but you suffer a good chance of a critical OP every 6 seconds I think (there is a cooldown).

I would say with deterrence you only get half that dodge (bad overpowers, bad!) and you get a nifty 25% parry on top of that.

So Deterrence is a LOT better than evasion vs warriors and even evasion is seen as a good thing (overall). Hence, deterrence rocks! /smile

Welcome to the survival side.

One thing I've noticed in PVP, is that many people expect a big red kitty to come flying at them. I'm not sure why since there are many MM builds as well .. but this is fine. Let them forget about me and focus on the pet. :P
(battlegrounds .. I'm finally just starting arena)

And during raids, yes I buff the damage of others. They may or may not notice this while I'm there, but they definitely notice it when I'm not.

My guess is that a warrior will do a lot more dmg in 6 seconds if he hits 80% and without OP then when he hits 30% and with OP....

Not really, deterrence still gives you enough dodge to dodge more then once every 6 seconds.
And that is enough to get every OP off.