GhostCrawler on BeastMastery

[Adam-Savage]

If you're talking best possible gear, we think BM is pretty close to Survival in 3.3.3. Marks is ahead, and that's largely a function of armor pen, but again you are talking about absolute best gear.

Source

[Vephriel]

This news has me on the edge of my seat with anticipation. As someone said in a previous thread, I don't necessarily want BM to suddenly become the best of the best, I just want it to be at least somewhat viable, and from what GhostCrawler is hinting at that may become closer to reality next path.

More from GC:

Nonetheless, it is also true today that Marks can beat Survival, and yet there are a lot of Survival hunters raiding. Our hope is that in 3.3.3 that there will be as many BM hunters as Survival raiding, which would be a really nice bump for BM.

[Adam-Savage]

Yah it would be nice if I could use Loq in raids. I love his badass roar!

[Ryai]

Yah it would be nice if I could use Loq in raids. I love his badass roar!

For me if it just ends the elitism that is still around, ug. I'll be glad if, for a time that goes belly up.

[Valinai]

I'm pretty sick of the way people rudely respond on other boards when someone asks a BM question. Too many "first of all, drop BM and go MM" or "you need a wolf".

I understand that a wolf is the best b/c of it's Furious Howl. I HAVE a wolf in the stable. But I don't always use Skatha because I like Veph better (the kittykat, though I do like the Veph here too) and Moros the devilsaur is fun to take into places like DTK. Dino on Dino!!

I did go into a raid the other day as BM. I don't know if anyone knew I was BM. Due to the circumstance of me joining, I brought my wolf. I was the only hunter in the 25 man VoA. I've never been IN a 25-man-raid. My guild master was on vent, (I really have a super awesome guild master, btw) and after we killed the first boss, OMFG guess what dropped?

Hunter piece.

!!!!

The group more or less disbanded after that boss fight. I was sort of in shock, staring at my pretty new gloves. I'd needed an upgrade to my 200 levels anyway. And BTW, I finished 10th in dps. Not the best, but not bad for what it was. Looking forward to doing even better with my BUFF.

[Tahlian]

Well, here's the problem with Ghostcrawler's statement. He says "Best gear pieces" and "higher gear levels." What he doesn't clarify is exactly how high a gear level he means. Does he mean gear like mine, that according to spreadsheets is coming up on the best I can get without needing heroic mode bosses, or does he mean the BiS gear that only comes off the hard modes?

If it's the hardmode stuff, the vast majority of the player base isn't going to be seeing those bosses at that setting...and the hunters that do are, more than likely, going to be required to spec Marks or Survival by their raids.

It's a worrying thing to think that they might have "fixed" beast mastery so that it becomes competitive only at a gear level that, by and large, beast masters will never be able to attain.

[Adam-Savage]

Well, here's the problem with Ghostcrawler's statement. He says "Best gear pieces" and "higher gear levels." What he doesn't clarify is exactly how high a gear level he means. Does he mean gear like mine, that according to spreadsheets is coming up on the best I can get without needing heroic mode bosses, or does he mean the BiS gear that only comes off the hard modes?

If it's the hardmode stuff, the vast majority of the player base isn't going to be seeing those bosses at that setting...and the hunters that do are, more than likely, going to be required to spec Marks or Survival by their raids.

It's a worrying thing to think that they might have "fixed" beast mastery so that it becomes competitive only at a gear level that, by and large, beast masters will never be able to attain.

Yah I think GC is a abit of a Idiot personally.

[Saturo]

Yah I think GC is a abit of a Idiot personally.

He's not really an idiot, he just says odd things sometimes.

But I agree a bit here, while it would be nice to have competitive BM Hunters, mentioning gear in the way GC does, it really makes me worry that only the elitists get to go BM, and that sort of sucks.

[Valinai]

Well, he could simply mean that BECAUSE the MM hunters are the ones with the gear...?

One thing to take heart in all of this: Blizzard knows about the discrepancy and is interested in fixing it, even if it's a baby step like this.

Second thing to take heart in all of this: November is not that far off and I suspect their goal is to make BM and SV more viable in Cata rather than trying to fix it all now.

[Tahlian]

That's not much of a bright spot for those poor souls getting kicked from or laughed out of raids now. They need to do something...although I'm afraid the BM = "huntard" stereotype may be too ingrained to ever fix, no matter how equal in damage output the three trees become. We'll have to see on that point.

(And please note, I do not use that particular derogatory term for our class lightly, but it does seem to be an accurate reflection in many cases of what others thing. I don't appreciate it myself, but in this case felt it was necessary.)

[Epicfail]

/sigh.

I remember when Hunters were the "two button" wonders of TBC (although if you were really snazzy, you pushed 3 or 4). I remember when being a marks hunter was grounds for being kicked out of raids. I remember classic wow survival spec. There's a mean joke. I remember fracking arcane shot hunters who stacked SPELLPOWER!!!! I remember people in TBC that convicted you of being a huntard if you raided with anything less than a scorpid or cat.

/snicker I remember when hunters weren't allowed to raid UBRS... it was just too hard to allow such a slacktastic class into a 10 man raid.

However, I also remember a LOT more variety in pets prior to furious howl. I'll tell you my latest theory: its because A LOT more people are raiding the upper tier raids nowadays. Before in TBC, when you were a "casual raider" it meant you were raiding Kara... possibly Gruul and Maggie too. Most people PVPed during that time to get their armor sets. Most people didn't care what pet you had back then. It didn't matter as much. The DPS charts still mattered (and always have and always will).

Was there elitism? Sure... mostly in guilds that downed BT/Hyjal/Sunwell prior to the nerfage. Those "hardcore" raiders were toting scorps and kitties almost exclusively (and I think some raptors). The stacking poison from the Scorpid was amazingly effective and gave you basically another perpetual dot on the boss that could last indefinitely if you downranked it to rank 4 (I forget exactly, but that sounds right). Eventually that got nerfed and with the buffing of volley, gorilla-dins got big for thunderstomp AOE grabs. Almost everyone had a rilla. I named mine fustercluck cause I almost always ended up biting off more than I could chew (and it was fun every time ).

Long story short, the "elitism" that so often is complained about in forums has always been there, there's just a whole lot more people able to do the content and their claim to that fame is following the cookie cutter and pushing the right buttons in the right order. Is it fair to everyone else who wants to play differently? Nope. Did they make life fair in the last patch? Not even close.

And guess what? If, after the hunter class is remodeled, the BM hunter toting a tallstrider gives the best dps, gosh darnit, I'll give that a go too. I'll keep true to my favorite pets when I solo and swap out to LongLegsLanore whenever raid invites go out. If people are going to count on my dps, I'm going to give the best I can. Am I going to laugh at the marks hunter with the wolf thats much lower on the dps meter than I am? Nope. Will I unilaterally accept a str/int geared surv hunter because they want to play that way or because it looks better? hehe. Probably not. I won't dismiss them completely, but if a person looks really lost, its actually being a good samaritan to give them directions .

As for Ghostcrawler... He's always been a bit "special", but then you'd have to be to stick it out as the hunter guy for so long. I can't say if he's talking hardmode gear, but I'd be willing to guestimate he means 264 iLevel gear at least. That matches what most people have seen going BM with devilsaurs as compared to Surv w/wolfy.

[Adam-Savage]

my hastily written post up above confused some people. My apologies. The point I was trying to make was that 3.3.3 BM seems pretty close to SV in a lot of cases.

Source

[Ryai]

my hastily written post up above confused some people. My apologies. The point I was trying to make was that 3.3.3 BM seems pretty close to SV in a lot of cases.

Source

Aria linked me a post when a dorf did numbers for BM as is atm, it's 3k dps behind SV and 4k or more behind MM. A little part of me just died in there, cause that's worse than the numbers GC threw out on a whimsy.

No wonder I've been insulted, left to die, kicked out of groups and all that.

And;

Long story short, the "elitism" that so often is complained about in forums has always been there,

Yes but it shouldn't get you kicked out of pugable raids, dungeons or heroics or any slag or grief, especially if you pull your wieght. And while it still has died down, compared to what it was.

But it's so funny to see people who screeched at me to go SV are now MM and diss SV .. :|

[cowmuflage]

Um guys do what i do and make MM your duel then raid get the good gear and Ta da! You will get good gear you can use with BM. Or do some Heroics there not that hard.

[Adam-Savage]

I wouldn't say it's that far behind. 1-2k less in dps really.

[Ryai]

Um guys do what i do and make MM your duel then raid get the good gear and Ta da! You will get good gear you can use with BM. Or do some Heroics there not that hard.

Not to sound rude, crude or offensive but that is -not- a solution to a problem. That's like offering a bandaid to someone with a broken arm

You shouldn't have to dual specc a PURE DPS class just to do better dps.

That's the problem here. Not the solution.

[cowmuflage]

I ment to say if you were finding it hard to get in a raid with BM go MM so you can get the gear and then you will be a well geared BM hunter aswell :S sorry. It would help you to get in raids if you had good gear then they wouldnt care about your spec then.

[Ryai]

The only thing is as I said you shouldn't have to switch speccs if you're a pure dps class, just to get into a raid or anywhere tbh. Maybe for buffs, but for DPS? no, you shouldn't. Then there's also the fact that even if you switch, you'll need to take time out to learn how to play that specc cause otherwise you'll do worse dps than your main specc.

While you may be trying to help, it's still not really a viable solution to the problem because as I said...

A pure dps class shouldn't have to respecc to be viable for anywhere or to escape elitism for just pugs.

I mean I never got flak on my Warlock of all things. And the only comment was someone suggesting a better rotation for me as all I knew really at 80 was dotdotdot drain Shadowbolt when nightfall procced...

But 'advice' and 'tips' and 'helpful suggestions' [note sarcasm for all three] came to Ryai in baskets and most of them said the same as you said, go MM/SV or dual specc it. And I shouldn't have to do that, nor any other BM, to be viable or to make us less of a 'joke' to other hunters :|

[cowmuflage]

well then if you don;t like that sort of stuff make some raids with you guild and not pug. You only meet the dicks if you pug. If your guild does nto riad well then its a good time to start up guild runs start with like 60s ones and go up thats what i did and its worked out fine so far and if you dont like doing that well your kinda screwed.

[Ryai]

Wether my guild raids or not is not the point Cowmu.

It's like this.

Say there was a class with three healing trees.

Then all a sudden one healing tree became vastly inferior to the rest- so much so you started getting flak about it. And no matter how well you did with it and how much you showed that no it wasn't inferior as much as everyone claimed it was, you still were told basically by Blizz, by players and by others of your own class, to specc #2 or #3 because #1 is just not worth it?

It doesn't make sense does it? Especially because you'd have to waste 1k for dual specc if you don't want to just respecc, and you'd have to relearn a different healing rotation...

This is the problem, because we were basically being told by Blizz, stop QQing go play SV or MM because they're still viable. And we don't care if you have to regem, relearn a rotation, abandon your favorite pets for a wolf/cat/raptor and waste more money for enchants and different armor.

I am not asking to be the best- but I'm asking it to atleast be fixed so most people will stop treating BM as if it's as low as dirt.

Now can you please understand why I'm not wanting to see 'Respeccing' as the viable solution for playing when A: most of my main's pets are exotic. B: half her pets are RARE or RETIRED or C: I do NOT like the playstyle for MM and BM on my main or two of my other alts sense I leveled them up as BM, not SV or MM or the fact I am more geared for BM and more gemmed for BM than SV or MM?