Giggle's Guide To BM - PVE

[Gigglemonsta]

Nah we don't gear for haste, due to our spec having lots in it.

One of the top hunters I know is marks, and he loves haste..... he does ridicilous dps!

[Kalliope]

Oh, really? He favors haste over armor pen? Our top hunter tends to focus on crit/arp pieces (he's marks too). Of course, he actually has a couple of haste pieces now too, which I hadn't realized, so maybe he's pushing back that way a bit. Haven't had the chance to ask!

So BM hunters aim more for the crit offpieces wherever possible? Or does it not matter so much?

[Gigglemonsta]

Oh, really? He favors haste over armor pen? Our top hunter tends to focus on crit/arp pieces (he's marks too). Of course, he actually has a couple of haste pieces now too, which I hadn't realized, so maybe he's pushing back that way a bit. Haven't had the chance to ask!

So BM hunters aim more for the crit offpieces wherever possible? Or does it not matter so much?

Ya especially if you are all AP gems, you will lack a bit of crit I'd say aim for whatever piece has the most AP, and if there crit/haste/arp differences go for crit

That said ARP does increase your personal dps, so it will still yield a good gain, it just doesn't apply to your pet

[Kalliope]

Oh, really? He favors haste over armor pen? Our top hunter tends to focus on crit/arp pieces (he's marks too). Of course, he actually has a couple of haste pieces now too, which I hadn't realized, so maybe he's pushing back that way a bit. Haven't had the chance to ask!

So BM hunters aim more for the crit offpieces wherever possible? Or does it not matter so much?

Ya especially if you are all AP gems, you will lack a bit of crit I'd say aim for whatever piece has the most AP, and if there crit/haste/arp differences go for crit

That said ARP does increase your personal dps, so it will still yield a good gain, it just doesn't apply to your pet

Oh yeah, ArP gems have been out since ToC, since the nerfs. I go all agi myself and have always preferred that.

Good to know, since there's tons of crit pieces in ICC. ^_^

[Awenina]

Thank you so much!
I followed your advice on gear, macros and even pet (my wolf was not leveled cos I prefer my moth and windserpent), and did my first 10 man raid today, it was a huge jump in dps and very effective! I took the multishot out for solo

MUAK!

[Tahlian]

Well, I did the testing since I got my T10 Sanctified gloves last night, and you're absolutely correct, Gigglemonsta...the Hawk glyph was indeed a DPS increase for me, though a small one, about 16.25 points.

Messing around with another spreadsheet in an idle moment, I've discovered that using Wicked Ametrines (orange AP + Crit gems) in my yellow sockets seems to make an even more noticeable difference than even the new glyph, which I added this morning. I'd always been taught to ignore socket bonuses unless they were just spectacular...but I guess even the little ones add up, huh?

[Gigglemonsta]

Thank you so much!
I followed your advice on gear, macros and even pet (my wolf was not leveled cos I prefer my moth and windserpent), and did my first 10 man raid today, it was a huge jump in dps and very effective! I took the multishot out for solo

MUAK!

AWESOME great to hear <3

Well, I did the testing since I got my T10 Sanctified gloves last night, and you're absolutely correct, Gigglemonsta...the Hawk glyph was indeed a DPS increase for me, though a small one, about 16.25 points.

Messing around with another spreadsheet in an idle moment, I've discovered that using Wicked Ametrines (orange AP + Crit gems) in my yellow sockets seems to make an even more noticeable difference than even the new glyph, which I added this morning. I'd always been taught to ignore socket bonuses unless they were just spectacular...but I guess even the little ones add up, huh?

NICE! Usually its better to ignore them, but if the spreadsheet shows improvement thats nice

=> Also got one of them screenys i promised u all! Heres me in a VoA. I could have done better (have done before), but it does show that I flogged the marks hunter lol!

[VelkynKarma]

Man, I feel like such a newbie. I can't even envision getting over 6K dps XD

~VelkynKarma

[Saturo]

Aye, that is REALLY good with a BM spec, regardless of skill.

You must be incredibly good at your class, Giggle. I could never hope to come near this in an BM spec. I'd have difficulty beating you with my MM spec TBH.

[Gigglemonsta]

Aye, that is REALLY good with a BM spec, regardless of skill.

You must be incredibly good at your class, Giggle. I could never hope to come near this in an BM spec. I'd have difficulty beating you with my MM spec TBH.

Aww im not that great! I just try me best

Wow I really didn't get much time this weekend to update this! I promise I'll gradually work on it giggle

[Sharilar]

Neat! What actionbar addon is that with the circles?

I always find it interesting to see how other people's keybinds are set up... looks similar to mine, too. I have Viper/DH switch on `, mark/manual petattack on 1, steady on 2, arcane on 3, serpent on 4, Multi on 5, and Kill Shot on 6. (Where do you have Kill Shot bound anyways?) Only downside is I recently changed to that, so I'm trying to retrain my reflexes since FD used to be 6(and Kill Shot 5).

[Gigglemonsta]

Neat! What actionbar addon is that with the circles?

I always find it interesting to see how other people's keybinds are set up... looks similar to mine, too. I have Viper/DH switch on `, mark/manual petattack on 1, steady on 2, arcane on 3, serpent on 4, Multi on 5, and Kill Shot on 6. (Where do you have Kill Shot bound anyways?) Only downside is I recently changed to that, so I'm trying to retrain my reflexes since FD used to be 6(and Kill Shot 5).

Hehe.

I have Viper/DH on middle mouse button
On the right hand side you can see the shift/mouse buttons. Ive got shift bottom side mouse button for killshot, shift top mouse button for volley, and shift middle mouse button for deterrence

I use a lot of mouse combos as well as keys (mains a healer thats why LOL!). I always key/mousebind my important/main skills, I very rarely click!

Its bartender for the bars with buttonfacade serinity skin

[Sharilar]

Figured I'd throw up another VoA screenie too, showing what BM can do:



Died on the second to last Frozen Orb wave.

[Cookieman]

/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/castsequence reset=4 Multi-Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Really good ''Screw ir, im lazy'' best in combo with

/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/castsequence reset=5 Serpent Sting, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Why: Have macro 1# keybinded to [TAB] and 2# keybinded to 1 then just spam this: 1x2, [TAB]x1, 1x3, repeat and you dont even have to think (well minimum thinking) and can concentrate on the fight easier (Im a huge fan of /castsequence)

Or you could go lazy as all hell:
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/castsequence reset=6 Serpent Sting, Arcane Shot, Multi-Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

[Tahlian]

Well, guess it's my turn to come in and post my photo on the virtual refrigerator.

I was asked to go with one of my raid alliance's 10-man ICC raids last night. The group in question, I should note, all have rusted proto-drakes and Starcaller titles from their earlier efforts in WoW. So we started off with the weekly quest, which for Feathermoon, was Patchwerk.

So here we are. I give you an example of a decently-geared BM hunter's damage on a 10-man Patchwerk-style fight.

[Valinai]

My turn for a screenie!

I dualspecc'd into MM in order to boost dmg. But I missed the devilsaur. And then I got the Spirit Beast. So I'm DETERMINED to prove I can put up the DPS!!

Last night we ran the weekly raid, just to kill the boss. So it was a short encounter BUT, it was a good test.

My guild is small and no one's ever complained that I'm not in MM. And if they need any indications...


That's me in 2nd place, behind our sick, sick, sick Shadow Priest. The person in third had an untimely death otherwise their DPS would have been higher. STILL, I'll take it! Second place, BM!!

I followed Giggle's spec. I've gemmed mostly focusing on AP. I've been focusing mostly on trying to get HIT up, with crit secondary concern and haste or arpen last. Trying to juggle all of the stats all at once is too crazy for me! I also need to get enchants on my newest gear (weapons from Forge of Souls!) and once I re-accumulate some gold, swap out some lower gems for better ones.

EDIT - silly me posted pic wrong.

[Sharilar]

One thing to think about for 3.3.3. I was reading on another hunter forum, and someone pointed out something I hadn't noticed. The shot bonus from 3/3 FI is going to change to Steady Shot instead of Arcane.

What this means is that at higher levels of gear(aka decent amount of ArP) BM hunters may end up copying the high-end MM hunters and drop Arcane because of Steady doing more damage. Of course this is dependent on if Sunders are up and if any of the magic damage increase buffs are up, but it is something to look at.

Also, I HIGHLY recommend avoiding castsequencing your shots unless you're dealing with high latency/lag. It's harder to adjust to changing conditions in a fight using those than it is to handweave. The reason hunters all used macros back in BC was to avoid clipping your auto-shots, which hasn't been an issue since wrath dropped. (If you're really set on macros for shot rotation though, there's a thread here about using a trick with "!Auto shot" to make an intellegent macro that models our priority system rather well. If you do decide to do that, remember they may "fix" this ability at any time to not work, so be ready to switch if it breaks.)

[Saturo]

I can attest that macros are'nt very important. I've never run with them, and my DPS has been good so far, even trough pre-TBC and TBC, when we had to worry about this kind of thing.

[Tahlian]

Eh. There's some theorycrafting going on in that vein at the moment...but as the Steady Shot change came in what is one of possibly many change pushes on the PTR, I wouldn't worry about dropping shots quite yet. Maybe as we get closer to the patch dropping...but not quite yet. I think the devs may have a few more changes up their sleeves.

[Brom]

Just thought I'd add a bit to this since I raid as BM on my hunter. I have 4 T10 sanct pieces, and the offset helm from ICC 25. My gems are all AG, not AP. The dps change is actually a loss if I would actually switch to AP or ArP, which is fine since my 2nd spec is SV. My best dps was on a Fester fight where I did 8.5k dps as BM.

ALso I would like to point out, the PTR change to FI isn't dropping Arcane Shot buff for SS buff, it's adding SS as an addition.

A screen shot can be found here: http://huntsmanslodge.com/images/feroci ... on_ptr.jpg

I haven't personally logged onto the test realms yet to make sure this pic is legit, but I don't see why anyone would go to the trouble to fake it.