I’d hit a point last week where I was feeling pretty doubtful about my own potential as a raider and about the glass ceiling on Beast Mastery. I think it spawned mostly from an Ulduar 10 run with a bunch of people who I didn’t know. See, the first day of that run, there were people there that I knew and liked from earlier raids, but most of them didn’t show up on the second day, and they were replaced by people who were SuperBig raiders who had been doing Hard Modes since forever and who were reminiscing about the good ol’ days of Black Temple and Sunwell. I started to feel extremely self-conscious knowing that I was the Oddball, the Beast Master Hunter who had never done these fights before and kept dying to things that everyone else seemed to be dodging effortlessly. I didn’t feel very good about myself at that point; I was afraid I was nothing but a hindrance to my raid group.
So then yesterday it was guild raid time; I was back on familiar ground and dealing with fight mechanics that I knew (for the most part). We started out in 25man ToC, which was going nicely until Faction Champions decided to glitch out like you would not believe– The Amazing Disappearing, Reappearing Faction Champions, Only On Pay-Per-View!– so because it was unplayable, we headed off to get a head start on tonight’s Ulduar. I was checking Recount after each fight, largely for numbers to report back here regarding things like the Bestial Wrath change.
4999 DPS on Northrend Beasts.
4553 on Jaraxxus (this is a fight I am still shaky on because I haven’t done it very much).
5082 on Ignis.
5297 on XT.
And these are all long, sustained fights– not just a few seconds of burst. I had to dip into Viper at least once on every single one of these. Now I have no idea if this is good or not compared to other hunters, but, I can now safely say that I am certainly NOT being a hindrance to my own raid group by spec’ing Beast Mastery, and that my issues from that last raid were simply my own unfamiliarity with the fights. Class/spec viability does not exist in a vacuum in most cases. So, I felt a lot better about that.
So let’s talk about numbers!
Stuff I’ve observed while “in the field”:
- Wash is still doing a good chunk of my damage. 45%ish or so. The fact that this means he’s doing close to 2500 DPS by himself makes me giddy.
- I actually am starting to really like the reduced time on Bestial Wrath. The reason is that it can now be safely used in places where I might not have used it before. Before, it was like “Okay, if I am going to have 18 seconds of uninterrupted DPS time, let’s use it.” But in fights where, say, there’s a lot of running around going on, or target-switching, or the boss burrows, etc., you may not always have 18 seconds of uninterrupted DPS time. 10 seconds, however, is considerably more feasible.
Stuff I’ve observed by doing “math” and messing around with spreadsheets (note: these calculations were all performed with my own gear/spec. Your mileage may vary!):
- Wolves have surpassed Devilsaurs in the Beast Mastery DPS department, presumably due to how Beast Mastery DPS has skewed more in favor of the hunter in this latest patch. The DPS difference is very pronounced in fights where you have less buffs (a la Heroics), and considerably softened in larger fights with more buffs (a la 25mans). For me specifically, performing several tests, I was actually getting Raptors as being ahead of Devilsaurs as well, but I know not everyone who was retesting my results got that answer. The Wolves > Devilsaurs thing, however, appears to be legit as far as I know and has been confirmed on the training dummies by the lovely Tchann of Crowd Control.
- For me personally, with my gear, 53/11/7 is still pretty much the best spec. I know Elitist Jerks has this whole 54/12/5 thing going on, but honestly that was a relatively large decrease for me with no buffs, and only a very slight increase (like, 10 DPS) with all the best buffs. I also tried a few spec variations that involved putting more points in Mortal Shots, my assumption being that more hunter damage would favor that talent, but again, any DPS increase was incredibly slight and didn’t scale well to heroics and 10mans.
- I then went through and enabled all the best raid buffs and tested pretty much every Ferocity pet I could. The DPS differences between pets are, in fact, much smaller than I was expecting; the majority of Ferocity pets, when fully raid-buffed and attached to a Beast Mastery hunter, fall somewhere within a spectrum of about 100 DPS. That may seem like a large number “in theory”, but honestly, if you’re talking about 5400 DPS vs. 5500 DPS, unless you’re in one of The Bestest Most Hardcore Guilds Ever, it’s not a huge deal. It’d be like if you got a 95% on your math test and your friend got a 97%. You’re both still getting an A. It made me happy to see this because I have this tendency to be drawn to the unconventional pets on my hunters; Lunapike is really starting to favor her Wasp, and I have a hard time doing anything with Althalor without his Moth. (Hmm, I appear to have a thing for flying pets as well, it would seem.)
As for Tawyn, well, she’s not going anywhere without Wash. First of all, I have a really hard time getting into wolves as hunter pets. Like… I’ve been trying since before wolves were cool. I’ve been trying since Burning freakin’ Crusade. I’ve lost count of the number of wolves I’ve tamed, tried out, and then released. I dunno, it just feels too much like I’m sending in a cute little puppy to attack, instead of a big ferocious killing machine.
Secondly, I just really like my raptor, and isn’t that one of the reasons to play a hunter– to use a pet you are fond of and attached to and that you adventured with?
My guild really likes Wash. I do too. <3
This amazing picture was made by Van over at Art of the Hunt. It’s one of the best things ever and makes me happy. <3 Speaking of which, if you have ever done a fan-art of one of my characters, send it my way, I'm going to be putting a fan-art section up on the site shortly! (And I may be contacting you for permission to post yours, if you've sent me fan-art in the past!) =D
I can see it now –
Hunter: Attack! Attack, my T-Rex of Doom!
Dino: RAWR!
Hunter: Uh, what’s with these DPS numbers? Are you not feeling well? Or… or is this about all the time I’ve been spending with the Wolf lately?
Dino: … Maybe.
Hunter: Ah, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!
Let that be a lesson there kids: You can’t trust a Devilsaur.
Pike, I fully agree. I returned to BM a few weeks ago after getting tired of the SV stuff. Too much staring at CD and really just being a copy of the other hunters, so back to BM. I am only one of two BM’s in the guild and we like it that way. I did see a bit of a DPS decrease, but, meh, it’s still respectable and I enjoy BM much more.
Using the pet you want because it’s the one you just like the best is pure and utter WIN. Hunters often fit that weird area as people who often don’t consider themselves RP-ers, while still having that RP side, thanks to the pet. Wash is part of your character, makes you recognisable in raid – players respond to “known” pets much more favourably: a hunter who has been pulling their weight and supporting the raid are more likely to see their pet get that extra heal at a critical moment, or even find melee moving in faster to aid them on that trash mob that got away from the tanks. And that’s just an ace little extra in the whole gaming expereince.
Out of curiousity, Pike, being a BM hunter, have you considered a BM spec as secondary spec, rather than MM, for fights that do not benefit from Improved Tracking? XT, Vezax, Mimiron and Yogg all come to mind.
P.S. Gratz on your new polearm!
@ The Rokk – Hee! It must apply to raptors as well. Mine being Wash and all that.
@ Semiloki – We have hunters in our guild who will occasionally go BM but I seem to be the only one who is pretty much always BM. I also seem to be one of the stronger DPSers in most of our raids, so it works out!
@ Ary – I’ve frequently considered two BM specs, including say, one for mana-regen and one for no-mana-regen, etc., however, I think I will stick with MM for now. I like being able to have that utility for switching to MM if we need Aimed or Silencing on say, Faction Champions. Not to mention, Mimiron… /shudder
Thank u, pike. I really enjoy bm and my tigers name is hobbes. Get it Kalvun and Hobbes. Sorry bout the Caps rant last night. Posted a request at WHU to see if they had the same results as u but they didn’t respond. Was using a devilsaur cuz they said it was best lvling pet but I’m just not feeling it so I’m back with hobbes as my main pet. Anyway keep up the good work
Well, I hope my Devilsaur doesn’t act like Rokk’s anonymous Dino. xD If anything, my other pets should be really mad at me, and I feel I should start using them again for the sake of this more rounded out pet treatment they put in. Hope Wash feels very loved! 😀
Thanks for inspiring the BM hunters to remain BM throughout the dip! Helped me not fall into the Surv FotM trap. (It’s a nasty fire one, that one, FotM.) <3
I was doing a Heroic the other day and a Hunter was talking about the exact same thing. Well, about the Bestial Wrath, not the Raptor.
I do like to see the increase in BM Hunters, I always get a chuckle out of a overly-large, red, Devilsaur stomping around.
Two new hunter blogs in this post- in addition to some excellent writing, thanks for the leads!
Lovely image ^^ I’ve been using a wolf since the became “the” pet to have, before that I always used cats and levelled with bears/rhinos. And since going more casual I’m back to cats it’s just finding the effort to level poor little NomNom. In my opinion it is nice to keep to the pet you prefer if there isn’t much in it 🙂
I have truly come to love my raptor as well after I tried one when I heard you say they were feasible- also I know this is heresy on a BM blog but I dual specced to nab a survival spec with a cunning pet with Roar of Recovery to reduce my downtime in Aspect of the Viper- and may I say I may never truly come back to beast mastery like I was before- I love the pew pew and I adore my white owl I named “Whiteknight” he is my totally awesome buddy and I wish I could have him land on my shoulder while I walk around Dal.
Curious, are those DPS numbers overall or per fight/single fight?
(Sorry if you already stated that and I missed it!!)
@ Zhire – those were the DPS numbers per boss fight. The Northrend Beasts DPS was for all three (four…?) bosses in that encounter.
@ Donovitch – all hunters of all specs are welcome here =D And contrary to popular belief, I do not consider this to be a Beast Master blog. It has sort of wound up… focusing on BM just because that is the spec I tend to play most. But I do not consider this to be a BM-centric blog. /nods
@Pike
One of our rogues (given leave to exist only due to the fact that he kicks bosses to stop them frying ma puppeh) recently suggested we get more into a hardmode mentality, forcing ourselves to do normal mode fights as if we were restrained by hardmode issues – examples being like on Vezax – shadow crash oneshots stuff when the add spawns, so focusing more on not letting any ranged get hit by it, even prior to the add spawn, or on Mimiron, where the raid group gathers in areas of the room which would dictate the flow of the fire spawns on Firefighter, or even stuff like Twin Valkyr, where we set up a formation prior to engaging and enforce taking only attuned orb hits.
Why mention all this?
Well, three reasons –
FACT 1: Pike likes BM. (If wrong, ignore FACT2 and FACT 3 and throw coffee mug at Ary).
FACT 2: Your MM spec uses, as every MM spec does, 5 points in Improved tracking (the smart place to put points normally) – which isn”t used on several fights due to the boss mob type as previously stated.
FACT 3: Beating bosses like Mimiron and co ARE possible with BM, and that secondary spec will mean that you could take points out of the temporarily useless Imp Tracking and the still omnom Survival Instincts, pop them in Mortal Shots, Aimed Shot and maybe even a bit in Spirit Link (for moar pet’n’Pike healage) and presto, you have a spec that can handle those “other” situations, while still being true to the playstyle you prefer. Hence my initial blather.
Now yes, you mentioned that keeping pet alive was tough on Mimiron, but honestly, if you work on pet control in the Mim fight, I feel pretty certain you’ll soon find yourself enjoying it more – Faction Champs and BM are a good combo, too.
Seriously, try it out – give a secondary BM spec a try and see what happens!
Ary 🙂
@Ary – to be honest though I’d feel uncomfortable doing that. Having an MM secondary spec is a security blanket, so to speak. >.> Besideswhich, our guild is doing less Ulduar and more ToC these days…
Hi pike, interesting read.
What do you use as BM shot rotation?
I usually do vipersting, and keeping it up always, arcane when off cd and the rest steady, and occasionally throwing in a multi.
It’s been very long since i played my hunters, so if you could give me your shots rotation, then i’ll atleast know if i am on the right track.
Regards, Michel.
@ Michel B – Kill Shot > Arcane Shot > Multishot > Serpent Sting > Steady Shot. Keep Serpent Sting up always, in conjunction with Glyph of Steady Shot it is a very large damage boost.
Funny I am curious as shot rotation also. 😉
He Pike,
Thanks for the quick reply 😉
Another one for you, what kind of stats do you prefer on gear, and what enchants and gems?
Regards, Michel.
I told you you’d be back where you started. >:D
One big way my BM tree and your BM tree differ is that I put 3 points into catlike reflexes (for the 30s reduction on Kill Command), then put the rest in Mortal Shots and Aimed Shot (since I didn’t have enough left to put 7 into SV). Would the 7 points SV do better for me in BM than having twice as many Kill Commands?
(Oh, I also have 5/5 Frenzy and 2/3 in Cobra Strikes since I feel like I crit enough where I’ll always have my pet buffed at only 40%… but I haven’t tested it)
@ Furrymammoth – Here is the main deal:
1.) Three points is a lot for the small DPS increase that Kill Command is, and it isn’t worth it to go less than that– you either want 0/3, or 3/3, because you are trying to synch up Kill Command to Bestial Wrath as best as you can.
2.) You only need 4/5 Frenzy to keep Frenzy up 100% of the time. Some people roll with 3/5, me, I’ve had issues with that in the past, so I go 4/5.
3.) Cobra Strikes… I hear various things, I like to go all in.
4.) Mortal Shots + Aimed Shot has always shown to be a significant DPS decrease to me vs. filling out the seven points in Survival. I have tried it and also theorycrafted it out, and yeah. The main deal is that Mortal Shots is not very good for a BM hunter. It doesn’t affect your pet (45% of your DPS) and it doesn’t affect Auto Shot (another rather big chunk of your DPS). It gets a little better if you only ever do 25mans with lots of buffs, but other than that, it is not worth it.
Still, some things vary for different people, so go with what works best for you!
I’ve got an Ice Claw Bear I tamed at level 10 (Frosty), and he’s still my main solo tanker 🙂
It’d break my heart to let him go after all we’ve been though, (back in the day, with having to feed your pet and keep them happy until they were your “best friend!” and wouldn’t run away!
Pike: I Highly recommend a 53/18 spec I am in a 4 piece tier set and do about 6k plus in toc25 voa 25 and 5k in togc http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Icecrown&cn=Atrousniper&gn=Six+Sigma the mortal shots increase the dps of improved serpent sting alot and my improved arcane shot are doing 6 – 7k crits I would say bm is back to being a raiding spec by far. I make sure my pet has all the buffs i do and yes it has been a wolf for some time now. I also use spiced mammoth treats which is the only food buff I know of for my pet.
Bump ^^^^
New Name and Race
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Icecrown&n=troussniper
not sure if anyone is even keeping up with my dps bm specs but here it is. Forget what they said in 3.2 about arp, in this spec you do not train for exotic pets the 10% dps boost from wrath is exactly what we needed and seems to be all that we needed to put us back on top for dps http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Icecrown&n=atrou
the pets dps drops alot but if you have at least the soft cap of arp you will be doing 7 – 8 k arcane and aimed/multi shots big dps boost I have yet to obtain the arp trinket but can only imagine what it would do for my dps.
Also get the glyph of Hawk
Aimed shot
And Steady shot
That picture is fucking retarded and whoever drew it has no artistic skill what so ever.
@ Ryan –
*blinks*
Ummm… I invite you to do better? :3
i play on stormreaver as a bloodelf hunter just wanted to say i like how you choose BM cause you like and not listen to other people bull im BM spec i gem all armor pen pulled 7k dps on marrowgar with a 5.4k gearscore i use skoll the spirit beast found in storm peaks so whoever says BM isnt comparable in raids theyre dumb i was 2nd in overall and first in most boss fights(there were like 2 i was 3rd or 4th) so keep it up with BM its a fun and awsome spec