Took The PlungeFollow

Personally, I use BW every time it's up regardless of soloing or instancing. Of course, in a group, a lot of this depends on the pull and waiting for our Pally or Tank to have aggro before I fire it off.

In groups, I leave growl off and leave the pet on passive so, even when I do hit Bestial Wrath, the pet is less likely to grab aggro. For a good shot rotation, I use a steady shot macro and simply spam the hell out of it in groups. Try this one out and let me know how you like it:

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/castsequence reset=3 Steady Shot, !Auto Shot
/castrandom [target=pettarget, exists] Kill Command
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

When I am solo, I tend to not use my steady shot macro and I use my shots in a "modified" rotation. Solo, I am less concerned with maximizing my DPS and more concerned with maintaining aggro below my pet.

A macro will help. I hand weave when I'm bored, but a macro will jump your dps noticeably. You just don't have the reaction times, especially when under haste effects.

Since you're using a slow gun anyway, the 3:2 macro will probably work out better for you than the one linked by Wordaen. Try em both out on Doc boom and see what you come up with.

I highly recommend using shot rotation macros. I have three different ones on my bar: 3:2, 1:1 and a 1:1 with Arcane and Multishot that I made for myself, and I only use that one on AoE fights where there is very little/no Crowd Control (Hydross, Hyjal). The third one isn't great for Mana, but it does more damage than the 3:2- especially when there are several mobs. I recommend using the guide on TKASomething to help you make a cast sequence rotation that will work for you.

As for BW, I have it set up in a macro to use at the same time as the Bloodlust Brooch, and Rapid fire (if it's up). I only have 1 point into Rapid killing, so my cooldown is 4 minutes, which syncs up better than the 3 minute cooldown with 2 points into it. I put that extra point into Imp. Hunter's mark, and I haven't found any reason to go back.

On a boss, use it as soon as your tank has enough aggro- the sooner the better. You might still have to feign once BW is done- even with Salvation- so watch your threat meter. On a trash fight, use it on the second mob you go after, so the tank is sure to have the threat.

Edited, May 26th 2008 5:32pm by ProjectMidnight

I recently tried out BM for the first time as well. I leveled MM up to 60 then switched to SV where I've been since. But I was having a huge problem farming since I'd crit the aggro off my pet within 3-4 shots. Not a horrible thing, but inconvenient as I'd blow my mana savage strike/wing-clipping away.

Plus, I'd wanted to give BM a try. For some reason, I've never had a toon coming from the left handed tree (I have a druid that switches from feral to resto as needed, but never balance).

I went cookie cutter but didn't change up my gear or re-gem or anything, so I'm still heavily weighted in agility.

I must say I'm a bit disappointed so far. While it's definately harder to pull aggro off my pet, it's still a regular occurance. Though, I guess that by the time the mob is within melee range, he's also within 1-2 hits of dying.

The jury is still out and I'm not giving up yet - I'm filling in on our lower-boss Kara run this week and I'll be interested to see how I do without my trap buffs. It should be fine I know, but I've been very spoiled having my traps lasting 26 seconds with 24 second cooldown (or 22/24 or whatever the math is).

For trash I usually use the 3:2 Macro and I hand weave Arcane and Multi. For long boss fights I pretty much just stick to the macro. There are exceptions of course, MD, aimed, Arcane, multi combos for threat boosts.

I prefer to hand weave all my special things though. Rapid fire, drums, trinket, FD, I just feel more comfortable doing those by hand.