Beta build 12857 Hunter nerfs I mean changes :P

[Slickrock]

That looks about right. How exciting. Right now you might not even want to use Arcane as Cobra appears to do more damage.

Well, at least it can't be macroed so much and requires a bit of decision-making...maybe it'll shut the complainers up if nothing else. Truth be told, I could put up with my current even-less-exciting rotation if BM's damage was improved.

It can still be macroed. Yes, go ahead and hate me, but I'm a macro masher. Carpal tunnel and tendonitis don't allow me to be a keyboard jockey. And I'll also admit after playing that way for a while, if I needed to manage 6 different buttons for a rotation plus other optionals, I couldn't do it. Some of us that are macro mashers are just old and slow.

All that aside, I don't like what they are doing, mainly because they aren't delivering what they said they wanted to. Seems like they are just shoving pieces around, especially for BM. SV seems much more interesting. I'll likely try it again on my pvp hunter.

[Tahlian]

I said "so much." I use a macro or two in my normal play currently, but mostly to fire off BW/Call of the Wild/KC at the same time to stack cooldowns. I'm hoping this will break it up enough so that the people whining about BM being a "one button spec" and saying that therefore we don't deserve to do decent damage because it's too "easy" will at least be pacified somewhat.

[Anansi]

So Ghostcrawler said yesterday

Most of these attack still scale from weapon damage. We just changed them from say 200% weapon damage to 100% weapon damage with a higher attack power component. We want weapon damage to matter, but not quite as much as it does on live.

As an example, Chimera Shot now says: "An instant shot that causes weapon damage plus N, refreshing your Serpent Sting and triggering an effect depending on the venom on the target...".

This was after the indication of the removal of Venoms. So are they still actually there and just missing (like the Shaman's Ancestral Swiftness vanished and the patch notes said it was gone), or what's the deal? Seems like they may still be in, which would be nice.

[Kalliope]

So Ghostcrawler said yesterday

Most of these attack still scale from weapon damage. We just changed them from say 200% weapon damage to 100% weapon damage with a higher attack power component. We want weapon damage to matter, but not quite as much as it does on live.

As an example, Chimera Shot now says: "An instant shot that causes weapon damage plus N, refreshing your Serpent Sting and triggering an effect depending on the venom on the target...".

This was after the indication of the removal of Venoms. So are they still actually there and just missing (like the Shaman's Ancestral Swiftness vanished and the patch notes said it was gone), or what's the deal? Seems like they may still be in, which would be nice.

I noticed that too, Anansi; very curious. It's possible that we're in between builds or something and the venoms were taken out in the info discovered, but put back in later.

[Adam-Savage]

The beta Realms are still down to. They must of really broke something.

[Epicfail]

Which is why I've got my fingers painfully crossed that we'll be able to choose our pets' specs in Cataclysm. Really, reeeeally crossing those fingers.

Well they should really. I mean, if they want Hunters to really take advantage of the diversity of pets, then let us spec them with the tree we want. Otherwise, you can be sure that, as always, one Ferocity family pet will end up as the optimal raiding pet. Let us spec our pets and the range of optimised potentials expands as the Ferocity tree interacts with other pet abilities.

As for Trap Launcher, you're right, it would be on CD, I forgot some things have lost their CD and others have not. Kind of lost track of it all.

There will always be a "King" or "Queen" of raiding pets. I'm just hoping for a few close seconds and thirds within an acceptable dps loss margin. I really do like playing the numbers game, but I'm just hoping for a little more variety this go around. I'm REALLY hoping the specs follow suit with that as well. I'm planning on leveling beastie (with my always awesome, but not quite as competitive spiritbeasties), but romping through raids with a Devilsaur while topping the charts would be all manners of win.

A purple one.... named Steve.

[Kalliope]

I actually wouldn't mind a comeback for BM as a raiding spec; I do prefer marks, but since that's my PvP spec anyway, it's the spec I run around in all the time. I like having a devilsaur-visiting spec, y'know? I'm also more likely to cycle through my pets in Dalaran as BM, just because I *can*. Funny how having access to one pet makes such a difference. As much as I love the marks rotation for PvE as compared to the BM one (right now), I'd really be happier if I had an excuse for a BM spec. At least on occasion.

[Tahlian]

I dunno...now that the scrolling combat text on beta is finally working right, I was able to pit Clayburn at 80 and myself at 82 against the Raider's Practice Dummy. I was seeing several crits on there (not sure from what skill exactly, I was still fumbling around trying to figure out what I should use when ) that I can only currently achieve on live while fully raid-buffed. I don't think BM is in quite as bad a shape as it was in the current build, but time will tell. Hopefully Blizz will carry through on all their talk and get the three hunter trees as well-balanced as the three warlock trees are.

[Kalliope]

*pets Clayburn* How's the cobra shot-keeping-up-serpent-sting thing working out? The refreshing sting from chimera shot is actually one of the biggest appeals of marks to me for raiding, and that change kinda appeals to me...!

[Tahlian]

I'm loving that change. It makes me crazy on live that I can't refresh my SS as I please because of a power conflict with a buff from our Survival hunter. So if CoShot means I never have to worry about that again, I say huzzah.

[Shinryu Masaki]

There will always be a "King" or "Queen" of raiding pets.

Might not be true IF Blizzard follows through with what they said they where going to do with pets, and that is removing all damage from their family skills, so that all pets have the exact same dps across the board. But recently they posted about pet's specs having different % stats values, so unless we can chose the talent tree we want for our pets, only Ferocity ones will be able to dps in groups, dungeons and raids. That would reduce pet choices a lot, though not AS much as it is right now.

[The Insect Man]

Well, obviously, we're getting the ability to use rogue poisons on our arrows.... (joke)

Yeah, I also hope we're getting the ability to choose pet talent spec, because otherwise cunning pets is just a big ghetto nobody goes to for PvE, and I want to raid with a spider... it seems unlikely, unfortunately.

[Anansi]

I would dearly love to raid with FatCharlie, my pet Spider.

[Kalliope]

I was actually playing with a spider PvE dps spec the other day using the current trees; it's not too awful, though obviously not perfect.

Non-BM: http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc#0od000fh0Mk0o
BM: http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc#0kd00ofh0rk0b

The deep BM spec is more flexible; the fluid points are the ones in cornered and mobility.

[Anansi]

I was actually playing with a spider PvE dps spec the other day using the current trees; it's not too awful, though obviously not perfect.

Non-BM: http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc#0od000fh0Mk0o
BM: http://www.wowhead.com/petcalc#0kd00ofh0rk0b

The deep BM spec is more flexible; the fluid points are the ones in cornered and mobility.

It's not awful but you sure wouldn't want to raid with one. I run with FatCharlie in heroics sometimes and still pull decent numbers but it's far lower than what I do with Hobo (my Wolf).

[Kalliope]

It's not awful but you sure wouldn't want to raid with one. I run with FatCharlie in heroics sometimes and still pull decent numbers but it's far lower than what I do with Hobo (my Wolf).

Well, of course; wolves are at the top of the pile at the moment because of their hunter-buffing howl. Maybe try comparing cunning numbers with a different dps pet and see how big the gap is.

[Anansi]

Well, of course; wolves are at the top of the pile at the moment because of their hunter-buffing howl. Maybe try comparing cunning numbers with a different dps pet and see how big the gap is.

It's still a sizable gap compared to Zarbi (my Wasp). My average numbers (approximated, not truly averaged) when running a heroic with FatCharlie is about 6k dps. Hobo yields heroic runs around 7500 dps and Zarbi varies depending on if there's a Druid or Warlock in the group doing their minor armour debuffs. If there aren't, then Zarbi is actually pretty close to Hobo in overall dps, but if Sting is negated then I'm sitting around 7k.

Interestingly, numbers derived from runs with FatCharlie are far more consistent regardless of cooldowns, while Ferocity pets shoot up dramatically. On an heroic boss fight where I pop all my cooldowns with FatCharlie, my numbers edge up maybe 500 dps, but with a Ferocity pet, and especially Hobo, it can rise double that or more.

That said, this is all pretty much estimated from observation. I've cleared 9k dps with FatCharlie on final boss fights and less with Hobo.

Ultimately, Cunning pets are perfectly solid for heroics but I really wouldn't raid with one save for special situations (ie I use my Wind Serpent, NagoShango, specced into as much movement boost as possible for dealing with Kinetic Bombs on the Blood Prince fight, and there my DPS is pretty much 3/4 of what it normally is in a raid). What is really nice about Cunning pets is Roar of Recovery, that mana regen is extremely useful. If a player tends to run in a raid group where there's never Replenishment and the Hunter finds themselves going into Viper a lot, it might be worth trying a Cunning pet as a raid pet for the mana regen, it could mean less Viper time and thus an overall DPS gain, but that's situationally specific to a player predicament.

[Slickrock]

Ultimately, Cunning pets are perfectly solid for heroics but I really wouldn't raid with one save for special situations (ie I use my Wind Serpent, NagoShango, specced into as much movement boost as possible for dealing with Kinetic Bombs on the Blood Prince fight, and there my DPS is pretty much 3/4 of what it normally is in a raid). What is really nice about Cunning pets is Roar of Recovery, that mana regen is extremely useful. If a player tends to run in a raid group where there's never Replenishment and the Hunter finds themselves going into Viper a lot, it might be worth trying a Cunning pet as a raid pet for the mana regen, it could mean less Viper time and thus an overall DPS gain, but that's situationally specific to a player predicament.

The other factor now is are the pets getting buffed, and is the hunter getting buffed where it applies to the pet? That factored in with the mana issue, can mean large unexpected differences from fight to fight. As a BM, fully raid buffed (if that ever actually happens) the Trex pulls away from the wolf, assuming the Trex can stay on the boss or adds. But I've seen raids where it would have been better if I had brought a wasp.

Regardless, it's all academic until we see the new pet talent trees and pet skills. I do wonder if they are going to get rid of furious howl, as I don't see how they will balance something that buffs the hunter directly, while all the other skills are attacks or debuffs. If they don't change furious howl, it will still likely be better once we are into end-game Cata raiding.

[Kalliope]

As an aside, the only reason I was messing with a PvE spec for a cunning pet was because someone in-guild wanted to run with their spider in PvE. They're definitely not raiding pets, as web is unlikely to bring the utility needed for any fight in ICC.

Still kinda hoping for a pet pass that lets us pick the tree. If I could bring Ursa everywhere, I absolutely would. I kinda doubt it, though, since that would negate the massive stable/ability to call any of five pets.

[Zeilla8]

I'm working on a little vid atm with some BM play so you guys can see the damage.

I have to say I am TOTALLY pleased with how it is going. There is an addon for damage that is working (called numeration on wowinterface.com i think), and I did some instances I was level 83 with level 85 people and I was 2nd on dps. (and woot I beat a level 85 Pandamonium, hahaha ) Sorry I don't remember the numbers, but I'm installing it now so should have some vid of it.

I should say I'm not a big fan of BM anyways, but compared to my friends on Beta I am doing so much better than them in terms of killing mobs and not dying. I haven't died yet while questing lol, and that's an achivement in itself (for me hahaha).

Sorry just talk and no vids, but should be up soon to show you guys n gals how BM is doing in Beta