I would like to present to you some DPS breakdowns that I took a screenshot of after a recent… memorable Heroic UK PuG (if enough people are interested, I’ll post the story about it. Hint: I think I’ll call it “The Fable of the Egotistical Death Knight.”)

Here’s the whole damage report… yes, after the entire run, which means rotations and the like aren’t gonna be super perfect:

And now a breakdown of my shots. I would like to point out that this was a largely Multishot-free run due to lack of Replenishment and some other factors:

“Why are you showing us this, Pike?”

Couple of reasons.

First Reason: Look how much damage your pet is doing. I have consistently found that ever since 3.0.9, my pet will come close to 50% but not quite surpass it. Still, that’s a lot.

Now, this is important for a couple of reasons. Firstly, keep him alive (dur) and secondly, if you have to, kindly (kindly!) remind your resident paladins to give him Might* if they forget. That alone is a huge DPS boost. You shouldn’t have to worry about most other buffs unless said buffers are passing out the K-Mart versions. That includes if your pet died and you had to rez him. In my experience, 95% of people will fail to re-buff your pet after said pet rez (or will do their groupwide buff before you’ve rez’d your pet). I always hate having to point it out to people because it makes me feel like a whiner of some sort, but really, it’s that important to your DPS and thus to the group, so don’t be afraid to ask for those buffs for your pet. While we are on the subject, I always go out of my way to thank people who specifically remember to buff my pet after a rez. ’cause said people are rare. (If you are a buffing class and fall under said rare category, you have my undying affection and love as of… now.)

And yes, I also find it amusing that my pet and I have a different “most attacked” target. =P

Second Reason: Arcane Shot. I fired 186 Steadies and 113 Arcanes throughout the course of the instance, and despite that fairly sizable discrepancy in the number of shots and the fact that I’m using the glyphed Steady (10% more damage), Arcane Shot still was really closing the gap there. What this means is that it’s very important to fire off your Arcane Shot when it’s up; it’s an instant cast and you can use it while moving so it’s basically free damage. In fact, really the only shot that I think should have priority over it is Kill Shot.

Why do I keep pounding this into everyone’s heads, you’re probably wondering by now. Well, it’s because I’ve been running into a few BM hunters in instances who are still doing nothing but Steady. And they could be doing a lot better!

Third Reason: Mostly I just wanted to show what a good shot breakdown will probably look like for you as a Current-gen Beast Master. Gone are the days of having one shot doing as much (or more) damage as Auto Shot. Your Auto Shot is going to be sitting pretty at about 40%ish of your hunter-half’s total damage, because you have other shots to play with now that will be comprising the rest of that damage. And personally, I really, really like this change.

In closing: I am not a theorycrafter, and this is not a theorycrafting blog. I don’t know if I’ve said that before or not, but it bears saying again if I have. Sometimes I get comments or e-mails asking for more in-depth math and here’s the thing: I’m down with some math every now and again but I usually don’t dig into it. Most of my playstyle comes from observation, field testing, and common sense. My “numbers” posts are not meant to blow the Elitist Jerks folks out of the water, rather, they are here to spark inspiration in your head and possibly give you some new ideas to play around with or new things to think about. As always, feel free to take my post and add numbers to it on your own and do your own testing. I would be very flattered if you did that, in fact. But above all, remember that hunters are for fun! ^_^

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* I’m pretty okay with Kings too if the warriors really want it, since your pet gets whatever the warriors get. Hey, it’s better than nothin’!