BM in 4.0.1 - share experiences/tips

[Mockingbird]

Hello folks,

I couldn't find a similar thread (though knowing me there'll be one right under my nose).

In 4.0.1 I've decided to go back to my beloved BM. I've levelled my devilsaur, Steve, to 80, and been having fun doing heroics and super-easy I-missed-it-earlier quests (i.e. Borean Tundra at 80).

Current observations/tips/etc:

Instance damage - massively down. I was doing 4.5k average as MM, and now I'm doing nearer 3. Looking in more detail, I'm doing AWFUL trash DPS and topping the meters on bosses (so, the right way round, but I'd like to bring my trash damage up a bit). I think either multi shot is significantly weaker than Volley was, or I'm using it incorrectly. (trash for me goes traplauncher/explosive -> multi, multi, (multi if focus available), steady, multi, usually everything's now dead anyway).
Any tips? This was based on VH, CoS and FoS heroics.

General grinding - Mark/pet attack macro, arcane, arcane. That's been enough to kill everything so far. Particulartly tough enemies I added a "kill command" on the end. I'd kill command earlier, but it seems it's counted as 'pet damage' and if you haven't also got a shot in, can leave the body unlootable.

Boss fights (i.e. main rotation) - misdirect to tank, mark+send in pet, sting, hit BW + CotW + RF, and then KC, arc x as many as possible until: KC, arc x several (use 50 focus c/d when needed) and keep arcane and KC spam as long as possible during BW. After that phase the priority is:

Killshot, Cooldowns (BW, CotW, RF), Focus Fire if frenzy is at 5 stacks, KC, Sting if it's dropped, Arc if I have the focus, SS if I don't.

Try to always have focus + GCD available when KC comes off cooldown.

Am I doing things right?

Current gear is 2xT9 2x T10

Dirty.

[Golden]

Hmm, let's see now. I'm doing around 5k dps in average in Heroics on my main. She has pretty much the best you can have without access to proper raids (only my belt is from Marrowgar and my gloves are pvp gloves from VoA), 2xT9 and 2xT10. I also reforged some of my extra hit rating into Mastery, seeing as I was well above 11%. (Don't ask how.. I don't know.) For my pet I use a Spirit Beast with Growl, Cower, Spirit Mend and Call of the Wild off autocast. I'm also an Engineer and have my Hand-Mounted Pyro-Rocket macroed into Arcane Shot.

My Glyphs are as follow:
Prime - Serpent Sting, Kill Shot, Arcane Shot
Major - Misdirection, Bestial Wrath, Mending
Minor - Revive Pet, Mend Pet, Feign Death

I use the BM build suggested by Frostheim in Warcraft Hunters Union


And all my dps pets use the following build


When starting to dps a single target, I cast Hunter's Mark (which also sends my pet to attack), Serpent Sting, Kill Command (my pet got to the target while I fired Serpent Sting), two Arcane Shots, then a Steady or two to have the focus when Kill Command comes off cooldown. From there I carry on casting Kill Command whenever possible, refreshing Serpent Sting, casting Arcane Shot when I have extra focus and Steady Shot when I don't. I use Focus Fire whenever it's up, but save my Bestial Wrath/Trinket/Call of the Wild macro and Rapid Fire for bigger pulls and bosses. I'm generally extremely lazy about using my traps, but am slowly getting used to it.

With AoE packs, I pop Bestial Wrath whenever possible while making sure I'll have it off cooldown for the next boss fight, and do the crazy Multi-Shot spam.

[SpacemaNxSPIFF]

Well, I've myself have been endlessly messing with the BM spec too. Pretty much our AoE is very low unless the pack is massive. Multishot should probly be reserved for grps of maybe 6+ or to MD some threat to the tank. It hits for 1-2k with average-good gear so the focus cost isn't worth it with too few mobs. Although in CoS u can use Multi on the skeles if theres no big aoe person in your group, they go down in one or two. If there's not enough mobs just single target them down, youll maintain much better dps. This is rlly opposite to the usual volley spam so it takes gettin used to.

In general if someone in your grp is hitting rlly hard your gonna do horrible trash dps since your pet has travel time to get off a KC. At that point your better off to just Arc the adds until your pet gets to one that u can get a KC off. I recommend taking both dash and charge as BM, this way your pet gets to the mob quick and changes between them fast as well; and yes, they both go off if your far enough so its not a waste. Plus, to do so you just move 1 of the 2pts you'd usually put in bloodthirsty neway.

If you can use KC on a mob, any mob, go ahead and hit it. Its our strongest attack and most likely the tank will have tagged the mob beforehand so u don't have to worry about not looting, unless its a rlly weak mob.....

Also, keep an eye on your focus, early i found myself wanting to spam Arc and ended up a couple times focus starved when KC was off CD, this also helps train you to do so on boss fights and you get a smoother, better rotation.

I know what you mean about weak trash dps and topping meters as BM. I can still hit 9k on some bosses even 12k sometimes, but trash was rlly hard to manage at first. After getting more used to it and getting used to wanting to hit KC, and not spam arc, and not spam multi, etc. I found myself at my old numbers when I ran MM pre 4.0. (about 5-6k average overall dps).

Your boss rotation CDs etc seem pretty much on target but you probly want to save focus fire till after big red, if the fight even lasts that long. Also since BW is on such a short CD it helps to use it even on trash packs. Bigger packs are better but just remember to hold off when your close to a boss obviously.
Oh, and serpent is a waste on trash unless its a rlly big mob so don't worry about it, on bosses I just hit it before i pop BW and keep it up as needed but low on priority list, raid bosses youll want to keep it up more strictly tho.

Hope any of that wall o' text helps, the key is getting familiar=D.

[SpacemaNxSPIFF]

Hehe, well Golden posted that way more clearly than I did, and pretty much I agree except I've found the WHU spec not as optimal and prefer to put the 2pts in Imp Serpent Sting into 3/3Pathing for the extra haste instead. Imp SrpS just doesn't hit enough to justify using on trash when you can save the focus for an ArcS and does even less for me on bosses.

I also run with KC glyph instead since the SrpS glyph also seems very low in dmg potential when I calculated it, but the benefit of 3focus may only be worth it in rlly long fights so I'm not gonna argue.

Just my 2cents

[Silvarain]

are so many really taking wild hunt (i think its called)? i like the idea of it, but my pets never seem to be at even 50% focus much at all with my pets using so many abilities that use focus that are then costing double. any tips on the pet talent that might help me out? thx ^_^

ps. yes, i do have every focus return talent i can take maxed

[Golden]

are so many really taking wild hunt (i think its called)? i like the idea of it, but my pets never seem to be at even 50% focus much at all with my pets using so many abilities that use focus that are then costing double. any tips on the pet talent that might help me out? thx ^_^

ps. yes, i do have every focus return talent i can take maxed

Ah damn, I hadn't even realized they changed how Wild Hunt worked. <.< I've been using this pet spec forever, and didn't think of actually checking if there had been any changes to the skills. XD

Personally I haven't had a problem with it, but then again I haven't been paying much attention to my pet's focus bar...

[Rhyela]

I have noticed that in the heroics where mobs are a bit squishier, my DPS plummets. BM seems to be kind of a ramp-up spec in that you have Focus Fire and Killing Streak which take a little while to get to proc. With mobs dying relatively instantly, we don't have the time needed to use our CD's. Also, you can hit Multi-Shot a couple times if you want, but then you need to Steady Shot to get some focus back. But you can't Steady Shot what is already dead. That's the problem I'm having, things are dying too fast for me to be able to get everything off in time, or before I can get more focus to use more abilities. Now on longer fights or on tougher mobs, my DPS is higher than it used to be.

I figure this will all be remedied in Cataclysm though. From a video or two I've seen, Heroic instances are going to be tough, not nuke-fests. I can't wait! But for the time being, things are going to be a little silly because it seems now that we really out-gear everything.

[Royi]

Wait what is Focus Fire? Is that something new?

[Lisaara]

Wait what is Focus Fire? Is that something new?

Yes, its brand new and a very nifty proc. "Consumes your Pets Frenzy effect, restoring 4 Focus to your pet and increasing your ranged haste by 3% for each Frenzy stack consumed. Lasts for 15 sec." It's got a 15 second cooldown I believe too but very awesome.

[Royi]

Wait what is Focus Fire? Is that something new?

Yes, its brand new and a very nifty proc. "Consumes your Pets Frenzy effect, restoring 4 Focus to your pet and increasing your ranged haste by 3% for each Frenzy stack consumed. Lasts for 15 sec." It's got a 15 second cooldown I believe too but very awesome.

I havent paid attention to any of the talent point names yet I'm afraid. Is it passive? Theres so many new things I know I am still missing a few more.

[Lisaara]

Wait what is Focus Fire? Is that something new?

Yes, its brand new and a very nifty proc. "Consumes your Pets Frenzy effect, restoring 4 Focus to your pet and increasing your ranged haste by 3% for each Frenzy stack consumed. Lasts for 15 sec." It's got a 15 second cooldown I believe too but very awesome.

I havent paid attention to any of the talent point names yet I'm afraid. Is it passive? Theres so many new things I know I am still missing a few more.

unfortunately, no. Your bar should light up when its time to proc(If it doesnt, then thats my spartan UI talking. XD) and you click on it.

[SpacemaNxSPIFF]

are so many really taking wild hunt (i think its called)? i like the idea of it, but my pets never seem to be at even 50% focus much at all with my pets using so many abilities that use focus that are then costing double. any tips on the pet talent that might help me out? thx ^_^

ps. yes, i do have every focus return talent i can take maxed

I was thinking about this too, my pet almost never pools focus so the pts may not be doing much aside from opening. Although, there isn't rlly anywhere else to put the pts except survivability talents, which of course could be very useful as BM but might not be needed either. One thing I haven't checked is if my pet pools focus during BW. I'm not sure if the focus cost reduction applies to them too and if so then they'll be doing more dps with the talents obviously, but only during big red.

[Mockingbird]

unfortunately, no. Your bar should light up when its time to proc(If it doesnt, then thats my spartan UI talking. XD) and you click on it.

The light-up (and onscreen arrows thing) is a basic UI feature.

I rather like it, but suggest you get OmniCC, as for some procs (the KC one) it makes the cooldown clock hard to see behind the glow.

[kamoodle5]

I have been noticing myself and it does hurt of how now my dps is either dead last or third to last on trash mobs in dungeon runs compared to other players. I used to be either top dps or second; worst was third and I am a BM hunter. I do like how Multishot is the new Volley, but I am still uncomfortable with our new Focus bar. We could be spamming Multishot like crazy with plenty of mana and be a slaughterhouse. Amount of Focus we have is so limited. On a bit of a good side though, whatever mana burns mobs want to dish at us doesn't affect us anymore.

[Silvarain]

are so many really taking wild hunt (i think its called)? i like the idea of it, but my pets never seem to be at even 50% focus much at all with my pets using so many abilities that use focus that are then costing double. any tips on the pet talent that might help me out? thx ^_^

ps. yes, i do have every focus return talent i can take maxed

I was thinking about this too, my pet almost never pools focus so the pts may not be doing much aside from opening. Although, there isn't rlly anywhere else to put the pts except survivability talents, which of course could be very useful as BM but might not be needed either. One thing I haven't checked is if my pet pools focus during BW. I'm not sure if the focus cost reduction applies to them too and if so then they'll be doing more dps with the talents obviously, but only during big red.

i was JUST thinking about BW+WH while posting on another thread ^_^ once i get back in today ill see about testing it myself, but more testers couldnt hurt

I have been noticing myself and it does hurt of how now my dps is either dead last or third to last on trash mobs in dungeon runs compared to other players. I used to be either top dps or second; worst was third and I am a BM hunter. I do like how Multishot is the new Volley, but I am still uncomfortable with our new Focus bar. We could be spamming Multishot like crazy with plenty of mana and be a slaughterhouse. Amount of Focus we have is so limited. On a bit of a good side though, whatever mana burns mobs want to dish at us doesn't affect us anymore.

i hear ya >_> ive found im a little slower at hitting my skills than i use to. on the flipside, im still high up on bosses (which im sure we hunters still are) ^_^ once some of us get cobra shot we COULD be ok on trash, but ive put myself in a "who cares about trash" mindset and i plan on staying in it lol. if u want 2 go AoE out, throw in a few more steadys and dont 4get BW