On spirit beasts

[mizaralcor]

Hi fellow pet enthusiasts,

A couple of months ago, I was able to finally acquire all four of the spirit beasts after spending countless days of camping. All the waiting games just felt like eternity, but at that time all of the long waits had finally ended.

Several weeks later, the inconvenient reality that I was worried might happen started to set in. As we all realize, spirit beasts are probably not a very optimal pet choice for most of the other aspects of the game, including end-game raiding, arena PVP, and extreme soloing. As such, I'm currently using one of my stable slots for raiding pet (wolf), but I also need to free up another stable slot for those other game aspects. I'm also giving up on the minuscule hope of the possibility of additional stable slots in the near future. As such, with a heavy heart I kinda have to let go of one of the 4 spirit beasts.

I am really torn on this decision I have to make, but seems like there's no other way. Which one of the spirit beasts would you guys think should be let go (while considering rareness, ease of recapturing in the future, availability, looks, etc) ? Ah, and also, Loque'nahak isn't included as one of the candidate to be abandoned. Just the thought of right clicking his photo and selecting "abandon" makes me shiver the most among the other spirit beasts.

[Ade]

This will be of no help at all . But that is a purely personal decision. In the end the question is, what is your least favorite?

[Ryai]

Arcturius would probably be the easiest to abandon/repickup. Since he only has one spawn point and afaik doesn't share his spawn timer with any other rare mob. Mean it took a few days to get him on my orc hunter but it was far, far less harrowing than Loque and Skoll.

[Kitairra]

I agree with Ade and Ryai...lol...

As Ade said,it has to be your decision and no one else's,really....And as Ryai pointed out,Arcturis really is the easiest to re-catch....

But having said that,I don't have all four...I just have the best!....



Kitairra

[Vephriel]

Hmm, well personally I'd choose to either abandon Gondria or Acturis.

Skoll is just so beautiful and unique looking. While both the others are very pretty, they're essentially just see-though versions of pets we already have. So in that sense they're very similar to each other, so just keep one of them perhaps?

[Ryno]

I'd have to say get rid of Arcie... just personal preference.

[Valinai]

I agree with Vephriel. Keep Skoll, since he's the most unique looking. And it makes sense to let go of Arcturis considering he has less "spawn issues" shall we say.

[Saturo]

I'd say Loque, but since that's ruled out...

Arcturis. I don't like him.

[Cookieman]

Skoll, since he's the most unique looking

Really? So Loque'Nahak is not the most unique looking with her own skin, while Skoll is just a blue, big northrend wolf with sparkle's, but if you are a Twilight fan i see why you want to keep him, but on topic

Arc, He's fat (just my though), Bear.., and single spawn point with small amounts camping him

[Vephriel]

I was referring to them out of the 3 that she specified. Loque wasn't included, so out of Skoll, Gondria, and Arcturis I consider him the most unique.

And I despise Twilight, thank you very much.

[Saturo]

Loque sucks!

*Hides under table.*

[Gigglemonsta]

Keep em all, and do everything with them

I raid with a spirit beast, and pvp with a spirit beast. Your talking a mere like 100 dps here in a raid, when people are pumping out numbers like 6-10k, its not that big of a difference.

I never understand these people who use a crappy looking wolf, because a website told them to, when theoritically its not that different.

I've used a wolf quite extensively, but I just prefer to use a spirit beast. I haven't had any crap yet from a raid leader going "ZOMG U DONT HAVE WOLF GTFO MAH RAID MON" - I think they all like looking at my pretty beasts

My suggestion - Skoll/Loque for raiding (Skoll = huge under bestial wrath, Loque's growling noise is awesome), and Gondria/Arc for PvP (they are pretty impossible to see in battlegrounds, meaning people don't bother to target them).

I do love spirit beasts a little too much however - but my vote is keep them all - don't feel you have to conform because it would theoretically give you a little bit more dps.

[mizaralcor]

Oh, thank you very much for the advice and suggestions. Keep more inputs coming, guys

As for Gigglemonsta, it is not that I refrain from using BM for raiding because I want to eke out that small DPS difference, but in honesty, I actually hate BM as a spec. Instead of flocking to MM/surv just to follow the trend, I have been trying my best to actually avoid BM even during its glory days as the top DPS spec (early-mid BC, early WotLK). When everyone is running around with TBW-Readiness-TBW, I studied MM/surv to make sure that I will be as competitive as the BM-flavor-of-the-month hunters. In PVP, I also never liked the concept of BM's "kill them during TBW or else they will kill you afterwards", not to mention lacking the least CC option of the three specs [Scatter Shot & Wyvern Sting (classic); Silencing Shot & Readiness (TBC)]. I know it's weird to hear, I'm an avid pet collector (had a ghost wolf + gezzarak on my previous hunter who got hacked) but I never really got attached with BM.


As for the abandonment consideration, I agree that Arcturis seems like the best candidate among the three because he has the simplest spawn point configuration. However, from what I read in other resources, it is said that Skoll does not share spawn points with the other rares in Storm Peaks, while Gondria and Arcturis do (Zuldrak and Grizzly Hills respectively). Whether this is true or false concerns me deeply, because if the comment is true, then that means I'll have to fly around to check the other Grizzly Hills' rare mobs spawn points anyway when camping for Arcturis.

To be honest, that is my worst fear when Arcturis was announced for the first time. I mean, why would Blizzard make the other spirit beasts a pain to search and tame by giving multiple possible spawn points (and achievement in one case), while Arcturis is just confined to that single spot?

[FuzzyDolly]

Here's a thought... How attached are you to the wolf? Also, what other "aspects" of the game are you talking about. Personally, I'd keep the spirit pets and ditch the wolf when I needed a devilsaur or spider or something else. The devilsaur in Area 52 is always there. Spiders are always abundant, as are wolves....

Think of it this way... You want to raid with a devilsaur. You ditch the wolf and tame the dino which automaticaly becomes lvl 75. Make a quick stop in Northrend and in 10 minutes he's lvl 80. There ya go. Same thing if you want to go back to a wolf. Better yet... tame the animal you want to take raiding and do a random or 2 with him before the raid. If your guild is like mine, raids are on the calendar at least a week ahead of time.

I know it's a bit unorthadox, but with all the time and effort you put into getting the spirit pets, I'd hate for you to get rid of them.

[Gigglemonsta]

OOPS I keep forgetting im one of the few who actually raid BM.

Vote = Arcturis

Bear in mind (see my pun LOL), that having the one spawn point, means a lot more competition with camping, so it doesn't necessarily make it easier

[Valinai]

OOPS I keep forgetting im one of the few who actually raid BM.

Vote = Arcturis

Bear in mind (see my pun LOL), that having the one spawn point, means a lot more competition with camping, so it doesn't necessarily make it easier

OMG OFF TOPIC for a moment...

I ran Heroic Culling of Strath earlier tonight. Used MB spec and my new Gondria. It felt weird after using MM for instances. But I OMG LOVE THAT CAT. And I wanted her to level! So how do you do it with the SBs, Giggle? Is the secret in gear/glyphs/gems? What's your shot rotation?

[Gigglemonsta]

omg fill u in tomorrow when im a little less drunk lol

[Ryai]

Skoll, since he's the most unique looking

Really? So Loque'Nahak is not the most unique looking with her own skin, while Skoll is just a blue, big northrend wolf with sparkle's, but if you are a Twilight fan i see why you want to keep him, but on topic

Arc, He's fat (just my though), Bear.., and single spawn point with small amounts camping him

Hey! I despise Twa- Twilight and all its horrible spawn [no offense to any fans here] and that is NOT why I have tamed a wolf or tamed wolves or even tamed Skoll and Skoll isn't even related to the warped and twisted idealology of Stephenie Meyers 'werewolves/shapeshifters/fail skinwalker' native americans! He's based offa norse mythology, of a wolf brother pair who chase and attempt to eat the sun and moon.

>(

Lightning =/= Sparkles mate. Have you even seen the movie. I saw the movie when I had nothing else to do. Trust me. Skoll does not Sparkle.


/rant

[Gigglemonsta]

OMG OFF TOPIC for a moment...

I ran Heroic Culling of Strath earlier tonight. Used MB spec and my new Gondria. It felt weird after using MM for instances. But I OMG LOVE THAT CAT. And I wanted her to level! So how do you do it with the SBs, Giggle? Is the secret in gear/glyphs/gems? What's your shot rotation?

Ok less Drunk now lol. Offtopic lengthy post ahead BEWARE!

Ok I'll write a wee bit here, and keep it brief. Maybe at some point I'll write a BM guide - But I in no way feel I have completely mastered it yet. BM is actually more about managing cooldowns, and its harder to get right than most people think.

Gear -

Regular hunter gear. RAW AP on gear is the best, as it goes to your pet (armor pen etc doesn't). That said its not worth overthinking, and regular hunter gear is fine .

AGI vs AP?

I go with all AP gems. This is because I started doing this cause it was better. These days on female dwarf, in 10 man raid buffs I gain 8 dps going all Agi, but lost like 100 dps if I go all Agi in 25 man buffs. If your gear is already AGI stick with Agi, theres not much difference between the two. Having Agi gems also allows you to duelspec, unlike if your all AP gems, your pretty much BM4LYFEYO.

Glyphs -

Glyph of Bestial Wrath - Useless. If the fight is longer than 10 minutes, you win an extra BW. How many fights are longer than 10 mins? Also if we reduce the cooldown on BW it doesn't lineup with Kill Command anymore => Decreasing DPS

SO:

Glyph of Steady Shot - One of our bread and butter spells. This makes it even better
Glyph of Serpent Sting - Means we don't have to put it up as much, AND we save on mana.
Glyph of Kill Shot - More Killshots when the boss is sub 20% = a lot of damage. Add adds into the fight and we're humming.

Shot Rotation -

BM has a basic shot rotation. With 2 piece t9, Serpent Sting is first, else without it, its a lower priority.
Basically:

Hunters Mark/Cooldowns macro (to come) then -

Serpent Sting > Arcane Shot > Multishot > Steady Shot

Whenever Serpent Sting is up on your target, other cooldowns and AS and MS are on cooldown, spam Steady Shot.
Why multi-shot not aimed shot? Multi does MORE single target DPS than aimed does, and we don't have to spec into it.

On Trash:

(Less than 4 targets) - Single target dps

Use below starting Macro on each mob, then Serpent Sting > Arcane Shot > Multishot > Steady Shot > Kill Shot It should be dead by now

(4 targets + ) - Mulit target dps

Starting Macro > Multishot > Volley. Whenever your Volley has finished, if Multi is up use it

Heres where the fun begins:

As a BM hunter a lot of our dps comes from cooldowns. I have two main macros (amongst thousands that i use but anywho)

Macro 1: START

/cast Hunters Mark
/cast Kill Command
/cast Bestial Wrath
/petattack

=> This one is the one I use when I send my pet places (including the start of a bossfight/trashpull). Whenever I refresh BW I use this one also. Chaining your BW with a Kill Command is a good dps improvement so I try to manage these together. Feel free to add any short cooldown moves to this.

Macro 2: NUKE

/cast Rapid Fire
/cast Berserking (TROLL MON)
/cast Call of the Wild
/cast Kill Command
/cast Bestial Wrath
/use 13
/use 14

=> Basically this pops ALL my cooldowns including trinkets (I've probably missed a few moves off there). I use this at the start of a bossfight, and constantly mash it throughout the fight now and then. This is my long cooldown macro, and I save this for the bossfights/large trash packs (where I have time for them to come off cooldown in time for the boss).

How to chain these together?/Tips

- Save your BW/KC for when bloodlust is up or a higher damage portion of the fight comes up (i.e. icehowls smash into the wall). Don't hold off on BW\KC so long that you could have used it and had it cooldown by the time you actually use it (i.e. dont save it if theres > 1 minute until a certain higher dps phase). Use it as often as you can
- When the boss is below 20% HP use KILLSHOT everytime its off cooldown.
- Use your nuke macro during bloodlust/with bestial wrath
- Make sure you manage your mana (viper/pots) to have enough left to do a solid Bestial Wrath/Kill Command/ Kill Shot spam when the boss hits 20% hp.
- In heroic CoS set your pet on aggressive and win

SPEC?

Copy mine I've played around with several. If you have low crit (i.e. your just starting) dump 2 points from Mortal Shots into Survival instincts.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-tale ... ta&group=1

Pet?

Copy CourageWolf on the above spec Make sure to get bloodthirsty In this spec he heals a LOT and rarely dies (and if he does its a 3 second cast time with improved revive pet to get him up again )

Hope that helps! Any more questions hit me up!

[Rhyela]

Wow Gigglemonsta, heck of a post there, and very informative! I am pleased to see that I am doing everything more or less exactly as you laid out there. I use my short-CD skills on trash pulls, big nukey time on boss fights. My rotation is slightly different, but I'm still playing with it (only level 73 right now). It's so refreshing to meet someone else that plays as and succeeds in BM. I think I have at least a basic understanding of the spec, in that it's more cooldown-focused than the others (though I've never ever been survival or MM so I can't say that with certainty). I just need to get my skills into macro form so I don't spend precious seconds manually pushing all the buttons. I probably should get Rabid off of auto-cast, too. I figured it's only 30 seconds, so auto-cast wasn't bad, but if it's on cooldown when the other big nukes are up, that's wasted damage.

For the nuke macro, what is /use 13 and /use 14? Are those bag slots or action bar spaces? Just want to make sure.

I LOVE BEAST MASTERY! :B