BM curiosityFollow

Just wondering... how many BM spec hunters have truly suffered from the latest patch? I do notice that it takes a little extra time to kill things in my normal wind and grind approach (PVE), but that's without my best effort in trying to attain pure DPS.

I admit to not having closely tracked my DPS before the patch. Having done quite a few instances without complaint, both normal and heroic, I never really worried too much about it. After the patch, though, I installed recount and headed for the practice dummies, and using a manual shot rotation without using RF or trinkets (and no killshot, obviously, as the dummies don't drop in health all that fast) I was able to maintain 1.6k DPS fairly easily, through to the end of my mana.

My question is this: Is that still raid workable? I know I still have a few enchants/upgrades to get in place, but for the most part, I have decent pre-raid equipment.

I am fond of the BM build, so unless I'm just not a viable option at all when considered for a raid spot, I'd love to keep doing what I know/love/do well. Any thoughts and/or suggestions are welcome, and thanks in advance!

EDIT: BTW, my current armory is linked below, in my sig. :) And THANKS to Aethien for the stickied pre-raid post! It has provided both immense help, and wee bits of challenge, in tracking down a workable outfit!


Edited, Jan 21st 2009 5:52pm by Sketso

Raptors, Wasps, devilsaurs and even moths are good pets now.
It depends on circumstances and spec.

Last night I did two heroics, UK and AN. Tried them both out as BM and my DPS was around 1.5-1.6k. Pre-nerf I could easily stay above 2k, especially for instances with closely grouped mobs like that.

It really does suck when you just get into a spec and it gets completely ripped apart like that. Readiness + BW not working together really makes me cry, and the Volley nerf hurt.

My gear still kinda sucks though, so I'm not too worried about it. I'll re-spec to SV tonight and see what I can do on the target dummy.

Another thing, Raptors get significantly better when mangle is up, but other pets begin to approach its podium when mangle isn't.

To KIND OF get this back on track, I did my own research... I ran heroic Nexus last night with a PUG, running recount through the whole thing. Another 80 hunter was in with me with quite a bit of epic gear from 10 and 25 man Naxx runs, lots of heroic gear that I'm still working on, and about 350 more AP total than me (couldn't guarantee he was set up perfectly). It was a tidy group, excellent tanking, excellent healing, comprised of a priest, a feral druid (tank), a DK and us 2 hunters.

Long story, short, running recount through the whole instance, I had no problem being 1st/close 2nd on the average DPS list through the whole run, even though it was later in the evening and I was starting to get groggy. I was missing a few shots in my rotation every once in a while, and really took a DPS hit on the final boss, what with having to move/jump to remove that nasty debuff every 10 seconds or so, and still did quite well. As a side note, for all of those who turned this into a "teh bestest pet" thread, I was running with my corehound to slow down the casters. Not even a top DPS rated pet, and together, we still kept it real, averaging roughly 1.4k dps through the whole instance. Sorry, but I didn't remember to look up the boss fights where I was focused on completely burning through the damage. I was sleepy, darnit!

I'm happy, as I still have quite a few enchants to get applied (my 2 1handers, my cloak, and my shoulders being priority), don't have the absolute best enchants on the other pieces, and stuck with my BM build. I proved to myself that gear and spec isn't absolutely everything, but rather, knowing how to play your spec to the max is what does or doesn't make you viable.

BM's can still hold their own, even if it's not quite as well as we used to.

AND... I picked up a new BP (already on and socketed in my armory, linked in sig), new double socket boots, a frozen orb, and gained enough rep to pick up my zombie sweeper! All of that just makes "holding my own" that much easier! BM's, don't fret. Do what you do and do it well. We will survive!



Edited, Jan 23rd 2009 3:10pm by Sketso

I haven't had much time to play at level 80 yet, most of it since the patch (just got our internet set up last night). I decided to stick with BM for the moment since I was completely broke (24 silver left), and got invited along for Heroic Violet Hold this morning with a group of better-geared guildies (my first WotLK heroic!). I made sure to keep up Serpent Sting and use Arcane Shot and Kill Shot as often as I could, and I found that I was actually doing pretty well. It required a lot more focus and attention than the old steady shot spam (I did lose track of things a couple of times), but once I got used to it, it was actually quite fun, and I seemed to be doing a reasonable amount of DPS--I really pushed myself, which I haven't needed to do for a while, and came out on top of the meter by about 100-200 (down from 1k when we raided in BC, but that's a whole different animal) according to the guy who was keeping track of such things. Having an Enh Shaman in the party probably helped quite a bit, and the Warlock was trying out Afflic for the first time so his DPS was lower than usual. On the other hand, I know my gear was not great (picked up a new cloak from the first boss, which helped), and I was using a Wolf instead of a Cat or Wasp or something (my cat was only 75 so I figured bringing him would be worse). So obviously everyone could have been doing a bit better DPS, myself included...

I am beginning to suspect, though, that while SV and MM may have higher possible DPS, it is still reasonable to expect decent DPS from BM. We may have been nerfed a fair bit, but not so much as to be unplayable. It's just a little harder than before to perform at a reasonable level, and for those who have been playing BM just so they can have a one-button rotation, it's going to be a tough adjustment. Myself, I am somewhat torn between my love of Beast Mastery and my desire to do good raid damage. I'll probably respec SV just to try it out, but it's good to know that BM can at least hold its own against other classes in terms of DPS

**Edit for brain fart--I compressed my sentence into something confusing. >.<

Edited, Jan 23rd 2009 6:03pm by isyris

Before patch: 2k-2.1k DPS.

After patch: 1.4k-1.6k DPS.

I went from top of the DPS meter no matter what to average middle of the pack. I'm about on par with my gear now, I think.

Archavon 25 run.
I'm SV, second and third hunter are BM, 4th is 0/71/0 (LOL)
2nd hunter has slightly better gear than me, but made some bad gem choices.

WWS
3.9k dps, so on the low side but still royally topping dps...

How 4 people managed to stay below 1300 dps at lvl 80 with 25 man buffs is beyond me... my DK does ~1400 in 5 mans at lvl 75.

I'm beginning to think that's why most people roll hunters to begin with. No one here, of course, but some of the people I have grouped with... >.<


Been running more heroics and have finally replaced my old badge pants, stuck new gems in everything but my old helm (hoping to replace it tomorrow), picked up some of the blue-quality leg armor, and really gotten into the new rotation. I go oom much more often than I would like in Heroics and it's tempting me to either level a Cunning pet or adopt a ret pally (anyone know which one eats less?) but I'm doing much, much better than I was previously. I'm a fair bit over hit-capped, and have some new shoulders I'm planning on switching to as soon as I can get someone to do the hit enchant to gloves (otherwise I'll drop below hit cap, silly Spaulders of Lost Secrets).

In Heroic Culling of Stratholme I was second on DPS overall, even with using Volley on the huge groups of trash, but I passed the warrior by a bit on the boss fights, so I count myself as doing all right. According to Recount my pet was doing a pretty steady 1280ish DPS, about what he was doing in Naxx the one time I checked, my personal DPS varied much more than his did (probably due to pulling while low on mana and having to switch to Viper for some bosses, since we were going for the mount). I think I managed to keep him alive the whole time, which must have helped a lot, too. If anyone's curious, the group was Unholy DK (Tank), Holy Pally, Enhance Shaman, and Fury Warrior.

I'll see if I can get a Survival hunter to run something with me tomorrow or Wednesday, we have none in the guild but I know one hunter who at least used to be SV so maybe I can talk her into it. I'm really excited to see the comparison myself, now that I am comfortable with the new BM rotation. :)

I'm sticking with BM until 80. You just can't beat the gorilladin. It might take a few seconds longer but it's still safer for me to have the gorilla and pull 5 or 6 mobs at a time and still survive.

Any BM spec should be a good 'leveling' spec as long as you have growl going... :)

As for the DPS side of BM, I just switched my spec a bit (still BM) to go deeper into some SV skills, and saw a nice increase in DPS over my previous lineup. It seems to be competitive in all the instances/raids I run, and grinding/questing/farming doesn't seem to suffer at all. My armory is in my sig...

Edited, Jan 27th 2009 7:18pm by Sketso