It may seem a bit silly to be focusing on tweaking my spec and DPS now that we are probably only a few weeks away from 3.1 and the potential spec changes… especially as someone like me who generally takes a rather laidback approach to her own personal theorycrafting.
But I’m going to Naxx tomorrow with my guild for the first time in a while– yes, I’m actually going to be able to go with my guild this time and not have to PuG– and I want to make sure I make a good impression and am pulling my weight!
Which leads us to the spec experimentation that I’m currently in the midst of. I did opt to stay with Beast Mastery. I do want to make clear that I enjoy Marksmanship enough that I have offered, in the past, to gladly respec to it on particularly pet-unfriendly fights, such as a guild Sarth1D run I did the other week, but we’ve always managed to end up eventually clearing it without me having to do so. (Sarth Dancing For Your Pet movie in the future, perhaps?) But Naxx, I know, is pretty pet friendly overall which leans itself towards BM, which works out fine for me!
My experimentation comes from this post over at the WoW_Ladies community on LJ, which referenced this thread on Elitist Jerks, which is devoted to hammering out various max-DPS hunter specs on paper. Their suggested Beast Mastery build? 52/12/7.
Which is kind of, well, a lot different than the 53/18/0 I’ve been running with.
What this spec primarily does is swap out 15% extra damage on your Arcane Shot for 5% extra damage on all your shots– a reasonable trade, I figure– and some of the bonus crit damage for an increased chance to crit with your specials, which should in turn boost the number of Cobra Strikes procs you get. Oh, and you’ve gotta give up the Beast Mastery talent. Which I opted to do for now. Just… don’t let me go into Sholazar until I get it back, because knowing my luck, I will find Loque while not able to tame him and I will cry.
Anyways, I took that suggested spec, made one minor tweak to it (I can’t live without 2/2 Improved Mend Pet… I just can’t. >.>) aaand went and did a couple of heroics and a normal Archavon. Unfortunately I don’t feel like I got very satisfactory Recount results. Heroic Drak’theron does not seem to lend itself well to many tests other than a couple of the bosses, and this Archavon was a rather ragtag group with only one tank rather than the usual two, and as such wasn’t a “typical” battle like I was hoping for. Still, on the occasions where I was able to simply stand and pewpew, the results were promising.
Overall I think that this spec might in fact be able to squeak out a little more DPS than what I was running with before, but I’m still not entirely sure. A DPS test on paper is different than one in the field, taking your own personal gear and buffs and group composition into consideration. And the training dummies aren’t gonna work this time due to the nature of Improved Tracking and the fact that the dummies are mechanical. Anyways, I’m working for most of the rest of the afternoon but I’m hoping I might be able to do at least one more Heroic late tonight before I drag this spec into Naxx tomorrow.
…can ya tell I’m nervous? Yeah, I’m not really sure why, to be honest. >.> Maybe because it’s been a long time since I was in a raid group with people I know are really good and who I really respect. I don’t want to disappoint anyone.
Oh, and one last thing! My WoW Insider profile has caused a large influx of new traffic and, with it, several e-mails. I apologize if it takes me a while to return your e-mail. I sometimes have a hard time telling which ones I’ve replied to yet. *nods*
Tinkering with it, what about http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=ctbMzgxRfu0eRt0ecoZx00b ?
Basically I traded a couple of points around to (1) Get BeastMaster back.. Sorry, OmNomNomNom >> Copy for damage output (Devilsaur vs Cat) and (2) get your 2/2 Imp Mend Pet.
I dropped a point from Cobra and a point from Frenzy. Don’t see why they’re claiming 4/5 of Frenzy is needed again, right now only 3 points are ‘necessary’ to keep it up most of the time. Dunno how much of a ‘nerf’ one point out of Cobra will be though…
Yeah, I took a point from Frenzy and stuck it into IMP. Cobra Strikes, I dunno, I considered making that switch but in the end I’m sticking with 3/3 for now. I think I will take this spec to Naxx today and then report back.
How did it work out for you?
I am running Survival right now for the extra dps, but I am sooooo looking forward to going back to beastmastery.
I just keep trying to talk myself into waiting till 3.1 with it’s free respec and dual spec option.
/sigh
Hope it went well for you =)
Even though I’m running as SV right now and will probably stay as SV for 3.1 (since I fell in love with it), I’ve followed BM specs a bit since I switched. I’m personally more in favor of Imp. Tracking mostly because it feels like overall more of an increase than Imp. Arcane Shot. The last time I raided as BM was right after the big nerf and I found that my Arcane shot was just doing too low a percentage of my overall damage (I think it was only about 3 or 5% or something? I can’t even remember) for me to be able to justify Imp. Arcane shot.
But, as you said, it is always better to test out the specs yourself since gear, playstyle, latency, etc all make your actual numbers very different than in the spreadsheet.
I think my second spec for dual-spec is going to be BM though, since I really want the new spirit beast. >_>
(It’s a purple tiger. I have an obsession with both tigers and the colour purple.)
Hi Pike,
Well ive been running with my 52/14/5 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=ctbMzgxRfu0eRt0eVoZx build and found it to do very well. This allows for me to keep loq and 2/2 petmend. As per the dps spreadsheets the 2 extra pts in lethal shots improves my dps more than using them in surv instincts. So it seems 12% more crit dmg bonus to all shots beats 4% more chance to crit with 2 shots.
At least with my current gear and pet talents.
51pt bm is a pretty lame talent as it is and isnt getting much better with 3.1 its still worth it to me for my current Sprirt beast 😀
Happy Hunting
Carnage
Buh? The 51-point BM talent is why BM Hunters are breaking 5600+ on Patchwerk in 3.1. The extra four points in Shark Attack and Wild Hunt, plus having a Devilsaur, are huge. I know people on the PTR whose Devilsaurs do 3500+ by themselves.
@Rilgon
My original comment was directed more towards my dissapointment that I would have to drop charge, phoenix and lick wounds to get the last tier dps talents. The latter two have been very helpful in pet unfriendly fights and in “oh spit” solo situations which also results in my ability to sustain dps(3500 dps= 0 with no pet). The former, charge I am not so concerned with it is a dps,stun in exchange for a higher dps talent. Though the extra stun is nice.
Haven’t seen any ptr numbers yet myself, but if we are seeing 3500dps from bm devilsaurs im afraid we(BM) will see yet another unfriendly bat soon./sigh
So hows MM going? And are Saronite bombs still good for you? I’m leveling my engineering again:D
Peace
Carnage