Unlinked Auto, will MM beat out BM in PVE?Follow

Now you MM's have .5 seconds more time to get your rotations perfect. Less clipping. You can also start stacking haste to a certain amount effectively lowering your weapon speed without clipping as much. Seems many theorists are speculating MM may have a shot at BM's PVE superiority. Of course this is all t6 relative. I have tried wrapping my stunted mind around the threads on elitistjerks.com but am hoping for some simpler takes on this here.
Due to my latency all I can say is that with latency and occasional lag I can pull off a consistent 1:1 arcane priority rotation while never clipping anymore so it helps my DPS a little as well.

Anyhow, here is some questions I have regarding MM PVE rotation, is your 1:1.5 rotation before this latest patch standard? Meaning have you always been able to pull off 1:1.5 with no clipping? If so then I really have no idea how unlinking auto will help you unless it now gives average MM hunters relative DPS to the better timed MM's. Since latency went down across the board by them removing Whatshisface's Algorithm I can see all of you MM's good and bad, fast comp's and slow comp's improving.

Since I sucked at MM and do very well at BM, if you folks are seeing some improvements I might venture back into that tree.

Actually that's not quite true. The .5 cast time of autoshot still exists (it was gone for about a day and then hotfixed). The big change at the moment is if you cast a different shot during the .5 sec cast time, instead of delaying autoshot like it used to instead autoshot will delay the other spell. So if you spam steady you won't get all your auto's.

Edited, Jan 23rd 2008 4:17pm by Xsarus

one of the issues with MM and a 1.5 rotation is that previously if you cast arcane .1 seconds into the .5 cast time it would delay auto by .1

Now it will delay arcane AND the GCD by .4

The EJ forums has a lot of discussion but no real conclusion has really been reached. Interesting though.

No one is questioning SV's DPS capabilities. When picking classes in raids, it's all about raid utility, what each class/spec bring to the raid. SV hunters bring EW. Any more than 1 SV hunter and you have a DPS that isn't bringing anything more than their DPS, which other DPS can bring plus their own particular utility.

That then leads to the question of which spec between BM and MM would you bring to the raid(and also why MM is always competing with BM in everything they do and SV seems like the step child spec lol).

BM is favored more in raids because of one simple reason. TSA sucks. It doesn't scale well as you get deeper into end game content, where as FI scales incredibly well.

The basic point is all DPS can, well, bring DPS to the raid. The question (problem?) becomes, what else besides DPS can you bring to the raid.

Then the problem escalates, because someone reads the posts like this one I made here, saying how TSA sucks because it doesn't scale in end game. They then decide to go BM, someone asks them why they went BM, and they respond by saying something like "TSA sucks", which gets misconstrued because no real explanation is made. Which then carries to lower levels arguing that BM is better than MM and such. Which isn't really true in any sense.

Man I got way off track.

Back on point. Topping DPS charts is wonderful, but it isn't everything. Ask yourself this. If you are in a 25 man raid, you had to choose between 2 hunters an MM and a BM. Turns out the MM can out DPS the BM by a whole 10 points(which would relate to 6000 total damage in a 10 minute boss fight). Would you bring that MM hunter, or would you bring the BM hunter that does 10 DPS less, but increases the damage of all the DPSers in his group by 3%?

Assuming everyone does 800 DPS, in a 10 minute fight that works out to 480,000 damage, add in the 3% damage increase for 90% of that total damage(FI is a proc so you can't take 100% of the damage, 90% is a rather reasonable amount of the fight that FI would be effectively working) That's a total of 12960 damage or an increase in DPS of 21.6. and that is just one other DPS being increase, FI does this same thing for every DPS class in his group.

So again ask yourself, are you going to bring that MM hunter who can out DPS the BM hunter by 10 points, or are you going to bring that BM hunter that alone does 10 DPS less than the MM, but increases the other DPS in his party by 21.6?

My Point? I kind of forgot, lol... oh wait yeah topping DPS is nice, but it isn't everything. Raid utility is where it's at, the more you do for the raid, the more the raid does for you.

Disclaimer: I have no problems with MM or including MM in raids, they are a great spec, and we all know Player Skill > Spec anyway. But the fact is TSA needs some revamping, because it just doesn't bring as much to the table as it's group buff counterparts in the other specs(FI and EW).

The hunters in my guild most just all respeced to BM from MM. Most saw a HUGE increase in raid DPS. Two of our hunters went from doing about 5-6% total dmg in a 25mans to 8-9% now.

As far as survival. I've read that it really isn't worth going for a survival hunter until your guild is getting into BT since the Surv hunter needs about 700-800 agility to make EW worth it.

I've just specced to MM from BM, and found my DPS to have increased by quite a bit... Basically from MM you get (@ approx 1700AP) 400 free AP points, {TSA 125AP, 45%AP to Intellect, Agi Increase 2%, & RAP by 10%) in BM you get BW, which isnt all that good in PVE, yeah in a PVP situation, its fantastic.

At the moment, unbuffed with TSA & AOTH im sitting at 2344 AP with 20.8 Crit. I know my crit is a bit low BUT i still sustain a very good amount of steddy DPS.

I personally feel that MM is the way to go in 25mans, BM just doesnt seem to cut it all that well from my personal experiance.

Maybe i got shot rotations wrong, or i wasn't utilizing the BM character well enough to see a Hardcore DPS sastistic, but my play style at the moment, has made my DPS shoot through the roof, on At'al (The Flying Boss in TK) i was 3rd in DPS agasint 2x Warlocks ahead of me, and only just.

Please get my armoury, on some boss DPS isn't key, for example Lurker, its about the add's and making sure you miss the water sprout thing he does.
Or Lurker, again, the add's etc etc...

But again it is all down to play style and skill, and gear. Some people can shine in BM, i did do very well BUT play a bit better as a MM Hunter.

Edited, Jan 25th 2008 7:32am by Reccyuk

Edited, Jan 25th 2008 7:34am by Reccyuk

If a 10% increase in damage for 18 seconds and a 20% reduction in mana cost is not that good for PvE, then there neither is any of the good "Use" trinkets that boost AP. That's like saying using Warden's Arrows isn't much better than using Blackflight, because the DPS isn't that much of a difference. It may not seem like much but it is more than what you have without it. And the comparable skill on the MM tree is Silencing Shot. BW>Silencing Shot in raids, of course silencing shot is very good for heroics and such, but raids are more about DPS, you won't be silencing too much in a raid.

Not to mention the 3% increase in damage from Ferocious inspiration. The 20% increase in attack speed. All makes for a beast of a DPS spec when looking for sustained DPS.

But I will say this:



I agree 100%, you didn't like the play of BM and went MM. I don't like the play of MM, I love BM. Both are great specs, both bring things to the table, play whichever you find to fit your particular playstyle, because even though they are all the same class, all 3 specs play completely different.


Edit: Removed brash comments

Edited, Jan 25th 2008 11:17am by SynnTastic

I'm shocked and amazed to see others espousing the same reasoning I use. Scary Synn, scary!

The only thing I want to bring up again is that not everyone can play every spec equally as well. It's more about the player than anything else. The specs are close enough at 70 to let folks play the end game they want and be effective. If you go into an instance with a PvP build, well, you're going to be less efficient, but you'll probably still do just fine in the instance 99.9% of the time.

Play smart and you can be effective about anywhere. Smart and well played hunters will always be welcome no matter what spec or build they are. If they have awesome gear: all the better.

BM also just flat-out puts out more personal DPS, which makes it even more imbalanced. Speaking from personal experience, our Hunter class leader finally to tried BM his DPS went up quite a bit compared to where it was as MM (Illidan-farming guild).

Of course, you do lose out on fights where you can't get good use out of your pet... which, honestly, is most of the harder fights in BT and Hyjal. Azgalor, Archimonde, Council and Illidan are all basically impossible to use your pet on without him dying (or even have him out without him dying). Still, BM is almost always the best choice.

@ Reccyuk:
if your dps went up when you switched FROM BM TO MM, you didnt do BM as you should have. I'm guessing you didnt grab the wolfslayer and start playing flashgames as you kept kitting the 1:1 macro. Your weapon was probably too fast to really utilize another 20% increase to attack speed.

This was in no way saying you are a NEWBIELMAOTARD, because you seem completely sane and intelligent. just saying that if you ENJOYED BM, you should give it another shot (i switched to SV and love it, but will probably be switching back to BM once another guild hunter takes it over... and can pull it off properly).

I'm sure by "always" and "never" you mean "usually".

But are you sure about SV? Think Arena....