BM Raiders

[Nagathia]

Wasn't sure where this topic should go. I'm a newbie hehe.
Anyhow, was wondering about all you BM raiders out there. What do you gem/chant for optimum dps in Icc? I gem AP and Haste and pull massive aoe and about 9-10k single targets, EXCEPT on baddies like LK and Sindy. Being a tad below the MM's and Survs is natural but annoying, and I love my rare beasts. So how do you other BMs do it?

[Saturo]

The way BM at higher gearlevels work is similar to MM. Gear for massive ArP. Haste is practically useless.

[Nagathia]

rlly? how do you figure? I love my haste. BMs are mainly steady shot, so i figured itd be best. how much more dmg does steady do with ArP? say 500 compared to 800, if that helps.

[Saturo]

Haste isonly useful until your Steady casts at 1.5 seconds, which it does when your Improved AoH procs, which it should do pretty much all the time. All that Steady shotting makes ArP your number one stat.

[Nagathia]

hmm...guess ill haveta think about regemming. my Steady is at 1.24 cast without any buffs or procs. most of its from my gems though.

[Saturo]

1.24 is way too much. Check the spreadsheet to see which gemming configuration works best. Be aware tough that you shouldn't try haste in it, it overemphasizes it.
www.femaledwarf.com

[Nagathia]

Do you raid BM, Saturo? If so could you link me your armory page

[Saturo]

I'm MM, but I do have a BM spec, on my Petopians alt. I'm not good at it tough. :D
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet ... Stereoptic

Some of the gems are pure crap, I know that, but I got them for free. :P

[Nagathia]

ty how much dps does she do in icc?

[Saturo]

Not as much as I'd want her to. xD

[Acherontia]

Haste isonly useful until your Steady casts at 1.5 seconds, which it does when your Improved AoH procs, which it should do pretty much all the time.

Exactly what I was going to say, Saturo.

My BM Raider

Imagine that the pvp pieces are swapped with t10 gemmed with Agility The PvP trink should be the 264 emblem trink.

I gem for Agi. As I see it, if you're going ArP you may as well reroll MM. The pet just doesn't benefit as much, and I think one of the strengths of BM is having a pet that can continue to dps the boss when you need to swap to bone spikes, blood beasts, ice tombs and so forth. But you ARE meant to follow the same progression as the other specs: ap -> agi -> arp, just at higher gear levels. As far as I know, once you go ArP you even drop Arcane Shot. EJ has some workups new for this patch but some of their numbers are a bit iffy to me (the post in question caters to all specs, and they took things like pet stamina rather than charge iirc, where charge is a dps increase flat-out).

I do about your amount of dps, more with the ICC buff. The most I have pulled in a hc is 9.1k (burst, really) on a heroic boss fight that lasted 15 seconds or something. On VoA bosses I pull just under 9k, generally, even with swapping to frost orbs (and even with using pet to tank them).

[Saturo]

Ache, according to all the spreadsheets, and my personal experience, BM benefits just as much as MM from the ArP. The pet gets useless, yes, but if you want to do your maximum DPS, it's ArP you need, as the OP asked. And really, unless you run all the time, you don't benefit that much from agility. I expect that when pets starts scaling 100% you'll want to go Agility, but right now they don't get even close to that.

[Acherontia]

Ache, according to all the spreadsheets, and my personal experience, BM benefits just as much as MM from the ArP. The pet gets useless, yes, but if you want to do your maximum DPS, it's ArP you need, as the OP asked. And really, unless you run all the time, you don't benefit that much from agility. I expect that when pets starts scaling 100% you'll want to go Agility, but right now they don't get even close to that.

Yes, when I said I go agility, I qualified it with this:

"The pet just doesn't benefit as much, and I think one of the strengths of BM is having a pet that can continue to dps the boss when you need to swap to bone spikes, blood beasts, ice tombs and so forth. But you ARE meant to follow the same progression as the other specs: ap -> agi -> arp, just at higher gear levels."

Please for to read the full post : /

[Saturo]

I did read your whole post, but you also seemed to suggest that you can go Agi too, for the same benefit.

[Acherontia]

Hmm, let me see if I can say it better.

What I mean is, it's down to choice.

Yes, ArP gives you better damage, but your pet does much less. An MM hunter will do the same thing only better. The reason I (and a lot of players) go BM is because we know that on movement fights (and in ICC there's tons), a heavy-hitting pet is an alternate, sometimes better, tactic. So choosing between ArP MM, ArP BM and Agi/AP BM is down to style/tactics.

Hopefully this is a better explanation?

[Saturo]

Ah, yes, sorry, I can be stupid sometimes. :D
I disagree a bit on how much exactly the pet benefits, but overall, yes. Agility will make your pet slightly more powerful, which can be useful. ArP will make you a lot more powerful, but it depends on how you want your damage spread out. On fights like Marrowgar, where you need to nuke the spikes, it's actually better to have more damage yourself, think MM. Fights like Putricide, however, benefit more from having a strong pet.

I picked bosses that are relevant, if you know any better, feel free to correct me.

[Tahlian]

Here's how it works. BM hunters follow the same gemming progression as anyone else. However, we gain more benefit from gemming from Armor Pen earlier than either Marks or Survival hunter and continue to gain more benefit from it, even if our spec underperforms due to lack of pet scaling. The reason for this is that we do not have a special "shot" like chimera or explosive shot. The meat and potatoes of our damage comes from auto shot and steady shot, both completely physical attacks that benefit a lot from ArPen. If a BM hunter has I think it's greater than 540 ArPen passively - that's straight off gear, not with trinket procs active or enchants, gems, or stat food added - then he's good to start gemming for Armor Penetration. The reason a BM hunter does not want to gem haste is that due to Serpent's Swiftness, we are quite close to the haste cap through talents alone. Add to that what's on some of the more desirable pieces of gear already, and we need no further Haste tacked on. And it is true that as a BM hunter's gear improves, the pet becomes less of their overall damage and the hunter himself provides more of it. That's supposed to happen, unfortunately. It's the other reason that BM as a raiding spec underperforms...90% of our talents buff our pets, which don't scale, etc. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will be fixed in Cataclysm.

However you spec, gem, or enchant, if your DPS is acceptable to your raid, then you're fine.

For reference, here's my armory link (and I'll hope I didn't in fact log out still wearing RP gear. I know I don't have my raiding arrows equipped):
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-shee ... eathermoon

When I raid, I bring my devilsaur Clayburn. I will sometimes switch to my wolf on the Dreamwalker fight, simply due to the fact that there's some of those adds you just can't send a pet in on, so the wolf's howl does me better in that particular instance than having Clayburn who can't attack at all.

[Acherontia]

Why is ArP better earlier for BM than for MM/Surv? I'd read it was later, but I'm not stacking it myself and fail at following theorycraft

And Saturo, in essence that's exactly it yeah. I think it's always a balancing act between movement (pet = win) and target-swapping. How do MM and Surv compare with BM for dps ramp-up time? If you're going on blood beasts, or bone spikes, it's what, serpent sting then steady spam (with instants where available) for BM. I'm not sure how MM/Surv compare, and if a group is weak on ranged, having superior self-firepower is surely better here, regardless of ramp-up time. Still, any spec will have advantages in places and disadvantages in others, and it's up to the individual which aspects of any given spec to enhance with gear/gems.

Btw, when it comes to individual bosses, I think almost boss in ICC has both movement & target-swapping.

Marrowgar: Bonestorm, Bone Spikes
LDW: Ghosts, D&D, Adds
Lootship: Adds, Sorceror, Mortars
DBS: Some Kiting, Blood Beasts
Rotface: Ooze, Slimes, Spray
Festergut: Spores
Putricide: Ooze, Goo
Blood Princes: Everything lol.
Valithria: Adds, adds, adds, oh and some adds
Sindragosa:Tombs

Correct me if I'm missing anything I haven't done either BQL or LK, but as far as I've been, it seems like both specs have their strengths and weaknesses (as do the various ways to enhance them, although obviously I'm not gonna be gemming Spellpower any time soon).

[Saturo]

BM is far more steadyspam than the other two specs, who both have much bigger parts magical damage, even if MM is the only one that counts in this scenario.

Both MM and SV have much better nukes than BM, that's why MM and SV are better at the bonespike nuking at the bonespike nuking than BM, in addition to BM not dealing as much ranged damage as melee.

[Acherontia]

If you're swapping targets as MM/Surv, what do you open with in order to 'get into' your rotation quickly?