I haven’t raided since February. But I’ve done some heroics and testing/spreadsheeting.
Best Pet?: Elitist Jerks says Raptors (yay!) at very high gear levels. Wolves & Devilsaurs are testing out to be slightly higher for me in my ToC duds. By “slightly higher” I mean “about 20 DPS fully raid buffed”, whether or not that’s worth it for you is up to you.
Shot Rotation? Again, going by very high gear levels, Elitist Jerks says you can drop Arcane Shot. Spreadsheet tells me I can’t yet. Praise the light, I hate dropping shots, it makes me bored out of my mind.
Spec? I am still 53/11/7. I tried playing around with dropping Survival Instincts in favor of more points in Mortal Shots but the difference is minuscule (less than 10 DPS, fully raidbuffed). It might be worth a shot if you are better geared, however.
Is BM “viable” yet? Ah yes, that word with the nebulous definitions that people love to toss around. Ultimately this one comes down to you, what you are doing, and what your personal standards/opinions are, but I can tell you two things for sure:
One, Elitist Jerks says that at high gear levels the difference between BM and SV is now very minimal. Both lag noticeably behind MM, however.
Two, if I can pull this off on a single-target boss fight in a heroic as BM in oldschool ToC gear & freaking blue ammo:
…then anyone who makes fun of you for being BM in a heroic is, quite honestly, out of their looney little mind. And yes, you can tell them I said so.
PFT. BM is so TBC.
@ Morkuma – I am livin’ in the past. We all know this. I DID KARA LIKE LAST WEEK.
At this point in the game, anything before ICC is roflstompable with any spec, and ICC is adding more room for un-“optimized” specs each month with the zone buff. In my mind, this makes BM viable. I’d happily take a BM hunter to ICC as long as they’re holding their own for performance 🙂
I ditch pugs with people who insult me based on my BM spec. They can go find someone else to pull 40% of the damage. 🙂
@ Tchann – I have actually never, ever, had anyone poke fun at me for being BM. But it seems to be a common thing that has happened to everyone else, so maybe I’m just lucky?
hey pike, my hunters tend to not be my raiding toons, but rather solo questing stress relievers. do you have a solo spec/pet/pet spec that you favor?
@ Kattrinsaa – I typically solo with my raiding BM spec and pet. If it is really tough solo content (group quest, etc.) I’ll pull out the turtle.
When leveling I’ll spec a modified version of raiding BM (usually just giving myself Endurance Training/Thick Hide instead of Imp AotH/Imp Revive Pet) and use whatever pet I want. It works for me well!
I am going to faceroll bm on my hunter, just for heroics, and to see what people say.
what is the most annoying pet besides bigredtrex?
@ morkuma – probably Big Red Core Hound.
Dang, Pike.
I can’t tell if you’re veeeeeerrrryyyy good, or I’m just bad. I have about the same/slightly better gear and only really pull that much while raid buffed :<
@pike hmm. I cant wait until cat, i am sooooo going to go into VH and tame me some lavanthor
@pike let me rephrase that. Most annoying NON loud pet. I cannot stand the noises
@morkuma: a chimera? Big flappy wings?
Pike, I would love to watch you play sometime. You’re OBVIOUSLY doing something differently than I am, pulling those awesome numbers.
@ Arkaen and Tirrimas – Honestly I think it was mostly one of those things where luck just happened. My Kill Shot crit, Wash’s Savage Rend crit… it was all good timing *nod*
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Pike, it’s too bad I can’t mail cross faction-realm, I have a bunch of epic arrows :<
@ Arkaen – hehe, I have plenty of epic arrows actually, but I’m trying to use up the rest of my blue ones…
I’ve had a tree mock my BM spec constantly for an entire DTK run, despite me doing more damage than the other two DPS – COMBINED. But I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want the healer to leave, and I didn’t want to make it look like I was insulting the other two DPS. But seriously. People are dumb.
In terms of pets, I’ve been trying to find King Krush for months now, mostly because he doesn’t STOMP STOMP STOMP anymore, and also to proudly show that I’m BM (which currently is not immediately apparent, with a wolf). That’s great that the raptors are still at the top of the pack too though!
I’m in a mix of T9, T10 and a couple ICC pieces, and in 5 man raid buffed, I’m lucky to kit 5.5k DPS as a Ret pal, and I am usually WAY in front in damage and DPS. Only 2 classes seem to beat me with any regularity:
Hunter
Rogue
I never bother to look at somone’s spec in a Heroic, unless they are MASSIVELY failing. But since I’ve seen at least one Devilsaur, I assume they must be BM.
Here’s my point: why does (or would) ANYONE poke fun at DPS doing 8k?!?!? That’s just insane.
People worry too much about each other’s undies in this game.. :-/
My hunter brusaoiri wants Loq. but i never have enough time to camp for him.
@SlikRX ugh brain freeze.. just imagined enchanted underware for our characters..
perhaps frost resistance?
@Katrinsaa
Well that would give a WHOLE new meaning to “wonderbra”. (I’m struggling to think of a similar joke for men’s …)
about most annoying pet- ever gotten that huge purple wasp that doesn’t reduce size when u get it and has that buzzing noise?
First off, I always run H’s in BM. I love to run my spirit beasts. But one thing I would like to point out that this dps is from a H boss and in a 30-40 second fight, with BW and BL(it looks like a shaman heals).
So we have to take this dps number with a grain of salt. If we want to talk about raid viable, we really need data from a raid. From my raiding, BM still is about 10% behind.
Don’t get me wrong BM in H’s is great fun, thats all I run H’s in. But when we talk about raid viable, for me its a little hard to run a spec thats 10-15% down on other specs. But that is the min-maxer in me.
People are just ignorant.
They see or read that a certain spec caps at a lower DPS then another spec in the absolutely best gear possible.
Thus the spec is dubbed “fail”.
Unless you’re capping out at that DPS, who cares?
Unless you’re doing HM Lichypoo, who cares?
Unless you’re doing more then DPS then that spec caps at, STFU.
Blah, Blah, Blah. 🙂
I raid BM, with a devilsaur. In ICC 10. The only dps that beats me regularly is our T10 geared mage and occassionally one of the DW-frost specced DKs. I have beaten equally geared MM/Surv hunters. Not every time, but it has happened.
Oh yea, and this is with the H PoS crossbow, because Deathwhisper refuses to give me her bow, and T9 gear with a couple ICC drops.
As has been said before, bring the player, not the spec.
Agreed. “Bring the player, not the spec.” All I have ever run is BM, and it’s all I ever will run. I find it to be the most fun and I seem to do better with it, even when I have tried out MM or SV. A good player using their preferred spec can, and often will, out-dps a mediocre player using the “optimal” spec. I don’t have top tier gear, but the only time I ever fall below 1st while running Heroics is when there is a lot of AoE dps from a mage or lock, or when they greatly out-gear me.
I understand people complaining about BM being behind. I don’t understand people not being BM because of it. Love thy pet.
Yay! Fun to see some action on the blog again. Didn’t know I missed it so.. Might go back playing with my hunter again now. He has almost been reduced to bankalt status the poor guy. Would be fun to go BM again. And say /ty to bf from me, for getting u back. 🙂
I do have a MM off-spec, which I use with my frostsaber cat. I usually only switch for certain fights (like DBS or Festergut), or if I’m bored and want more buttons to hit. I rarely stay MM for an entire raid, tho. And my dps usually is practically the same in either spec.
@ Mitsune- I agree, so very much. My pets are the biggest reason for my addiction to the class. I want them to be as powerful as possible. My devilsaur doing 2k dps BY HIMSELF makes me squee.