Mastery Rating

[Loffter]

So, I tend to lean towards mastery rating for my gems and enchants. I know I should be going for agility, I spose, but how much am I suffering? I have done one dungeon since I came back from a 6 month heitus, and I did 500 dps less than a BM hunter from my guild who has been playing this whole time.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/w ... iya/simple

just in case you want my gear as a reference. I have some geming and enchanting to do, and I got that bow last night so I need to play around with my reforging. I had my hit% at like 8.06% >_<. I like mastery just because it directly increases my pet's damage, and am aware it's not optimal, but how much DPS am I losing? I mean, if it's 20-30 I Dont care, but If I am 500 dps (was doing 13.5, she was doing 14. same exact item level.) shy on the meters because I'm not gemming agi, well I very well need to change that, dont i?

[CrystalKitten]

Kurenio has some VERY good posts about research regarding stat priority. I'd suggest searching for some of them. There's one on this board about BM spec, or something. He seems to have gone through quite a bit of testing and all that to help figure out the best priority, and all that. One thing to keep in mind is that even though master increases our pet's damage, Agility increases OUR attack power, which also increases our pet's attack power.

[Loffter]

Kurenio has some VERY good posts about research regarding stat priority. I'd suggest searching for some of them. There's one on this board about BM spec, or something. He seems to have gone through quite a bit of testing and all that to help figure out the best priority, and all that. One thing to keep in mind is that even though master increases our pet's damage, Agility increases OUR attack power, which also increases our pet's attack power.

i'll see if I can find his posts then =)

And I know that agi increases both our and our pet's attack power, but not to the same extent. One thing I looked at when I first made the decision was AoE pulls. Burrow is far more reliable for aoe dps than myself. so the higher attack power my pet's have, the more damage it does. There are also a lot of times when I am temporarily incapasitated and my pet is not. while I am (for isntance) frozen in a block of ice, he is still attacking. Also when I move, which is less of a problem now a days thanks to move n shoot, but still significant. Basically, there are times when my pet attack adn I just can't, and I feel that the mastery gets the edge on the agi.

However, with raw standing still aspect of the hawk dps, i can see where Agi comes out on top, easily. And I may be wrong about the mastery thing, that's just where logic (Certainly not math ^_^) led me for the BM spec.

[Kurenio]

Kurenio has some VERY good posts about research regarding stat priority. I'd suggest searching for some of them. There's one on this board about BM spec, or something. He seems to have gone through quite a bit of testing and all that to help figure out the best priority, and all that. One thing to keep in mind is that even though master increases our pet's damage, Agility increases OUR attack power, which also increases our pet's attack power.

Pretty much what Crystal said. Agility is our main stat and dwarfs every other stat when it comes to dps. Your gems should be pure agility unless the socket bonus is 20+ Agility for a 1 half gem(Agi+something). 30+ for a 2 half gem(Agi+something). It will be quite a difference in your dps if your putting mastery before agility. Also you should not be worried about your AoE dps. If it is really that important make a survival off spec for your AoE needs. AoE is currently just horrid for BM, but here is the link to the BM discussion that was going on earlier.

http://forums.wow-petopia.com/viewtopic ... 15&t=13537

TL:DR The current stat prio is Agility > Hit to 8% > Crit >= Mastery > Haste

The gear you want to shoot for is Crit+Mastery (Agility being a primary stat it will be on all of your gear).

As for trinkets I'd go
1. Agi passive + crit proc
2. Agi passive + mastery proc
3. Agi passive + dmg proc
4. Crit passive + Agi proc
5. Crit passive + Mastery proc
6. Mastery passive + Agi proc
7. Mastery passive + crit proc

Blizzard did nerf us slightly while trying to keep surv and MM the same so obviously they were seeing something most of us were not.

EDIT: Just noticed you play on wildhammer... all I have to say to that is WEWT! I played there precata, but left due to all the trolls and dicks there >.>

[Loffter]

I see. If it's that significant, I should proble regem. That's a shame =(. I love seeing those huge numbers off my pet.

edit- and yes. Wildhammer has some wild dicks. It's amazing. but you get a few solid gems on there. Like me!

[wickedhunter]

So, I tend to lean towards mastery rating for my gems and enchants. I know I should be going for agility, I spose, but how much am I suffering? I have done one dungeon since I came back from a 6 month heitus, and I did 500 dps less than a BM hunter from my guild who has been playing this whole time.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/w ... iya/simple

just in case you want my gear as a reference. I have some geming and enchanting to do, and I got that bow last night so I need to play around with my reforging. I had my hit% at like 8.06% >_<. I like mastery just because it directly increases my pet's damage, and am aware it's not optimal, but how much DPS am I losing? I mean, if it's 20-30 I Dont care, but If I am 500 dps (was doing 13.5, she was doing 14. same exact item level.) shy on the meters because I'm not gemming agi, well I very well need to change that, dont i?

well if your looking for damage out put i can tell u mm is the way to go i sustain 24k+ in firelands depending on the fight and burst damage i get up to roughly around 35k and aoe i get up to 40- 45k

[CrystalKitten]

I personally try to match my sockets.. I know what some say about it.. but.. It's a thing, heh. But I have personally have an agility then mastery priority for gems.

As far as huge numbers go, you can still get some big ones. I often get 30k+ crits off kill command Which is about the same as my pyro mages pyroblast crits.

[Kurenio]

well if your looking for damage out put i can tell u mm is the way to go i sustain 24k+ in firelands depending on the fight and burst damage i get up to roughly around 35k and aoe i get up to 40- 45k

*cough* I pulled 24k+ sustained in T11 content *cough* granted that was in a 25m raid setting in horrible gear (I still have horrible gear imo). A good BM hunter can compete with a good MM hunter in terms of damage assuming their pet can be on the main target. I can pull up to 35k in aoe if I pop BW with spamming MS. done think because the average BM hunter pulls nothing near that of a MM hunter, but a highly skilled BM hunter like myself can. I've personally out dps'd good MM hunters who out gear me.

[Loffter]

well if your looking for damage out put i can tell u mm is the way to go i sustain 24k+ in firelands depending on the fight and burst damage i get up to roughly around 35k and aoe i get up to 40- 45k

*cough* I pulled 24k+ sustained in T11 content *cough* granted that was in a 25m raid setting in horrible gear (I still have horrible gear imo). A good BM hunter can compete with a good MM hunter in terms of damage assuming their pet can be on the main target. I can pull up to 35k in aoe if I pop BW with spamming MS. done think because the average BM hunter pulls nothing near that of a MM hunter, but a highly skilled BM hunter like myself can. I've personally out dps'd good MM hunters who out gear me.

.

Ditto. I am just most comfortable in BM. LAst night in ZG, we went through, I had my silithid for health buff, we got to a boss, i dismissed in the middle, popped hero, resummoned silithid. During the big cat pulls, tank was losing aggro on at least one cat on every pull, turtle saved the day. again during another boss, I dropped my silithid for my turtle because the tank dropped, and my turtle + the dk bounced aggro for the last 15% health.

I love having that sort of dynamic freedom. And even pet swapping like that for any given situation I was able to pull 13.5 dps.

[Slickrock]

With the recent nerfs to pets in 4.2, I think the argument for haste being better than master can be made. A lot does depend on your gear level, and what content you are doing.

[Kurenio]

With the recent nerfs to pets in 4.2, I think the argument for haste being better than master can be made. A lot does depend on your gear level, and what content you are doing.

The nerf wasn't to major... just a .02 per point of mastery damage nerf. haste still wouldn't be made that great. If they changed it so that we would get enough focus from haste to launch off 1 cobra shot and 4 arcane shots between KC it would still not be enough to out due mastery but it would switch crit and haste around.

[Morven]

Am I right in recalling that mastery is pretty much useless for the MM spec, though?

[Seilahyn]

Ok I can't remember which thread it was that I was originally reading, but seeing as you've posted in them all.

Kurenio:

So don't believe Femaledwarf.com when it comes to Haste and DPS outcome? I've used that to make different gear builds and Haste always comes out over Mastery on there. I've read up on ElitistJerks as well and they pretty much said Haste and Mastery are pretty close, but not to reforge Mastery. I've been reforging Mastery > Haste on things with Crit because it shows that producing higher DPS on the calculator. I imagine that it can make mistakes and maybe doesn't calculate things properly when it comes to caps and tiers.

Honestly I was in the boat thinking Mastery would be after Crit. Originally, I had planned on making a Mastery set when Mastery was our best thing to pump, other than AGI. Then like a day after I started getting it, Mastery went pffffbt.

I never planned on raiding to be honest, but I joined a pretty casual guild that raids. We did 10 man BWD and went 3/6 on the first night. I thought it was pretty nice seeing as I had pretty much no raid experience at all and it was the first time a couple people had been there. I believe my DPS in mostly blues was 16k peaking at almost 18k. You can see my gear in my Armory(ignore the AGI+Mastery gem in my helm. That's a remnant I never replaced from my Mastery set. Been meaning to replace it but figured it'll get replaced by a purple helm soon.). Only new thing is the Chimaeron bracers(woot) which I got Tuesday night.

I've also been told to shoot for 1235 Haste and not to go over that. At that time I was 1300ish, but have dropped a bit with the Chimaeron bracers.

Anywho, you seem to be pretty big in the end game raiding with BM. I would believe any advice you have to give as you seem like you've tested quiet a bit.

[Kurenio]

Well Its a little late so tomorrow I'll go and take screen shots of different priorities of BM

Since agi and hit are givens.

It'll be each of these

Crit > Mastery > Haste as a priority
Crit > Haste > Mastery as a priority
Mastery > Crit > Haste as a priority
Mastery > Haste > Crit as a priority
Haste > Crit > Mastery as a priority
Haste > Mastery > Crit as a priority

This will show the difference in DPS for each of them.

As for femaledwarf.com. I used it quite a bit back and wrath and even have used it a little bit in cata and it has always shown mastery over haste, and when I would switch things around for haste it would just be a dps loss over all. So I'll see you guys tomorrow with my results. It will be proof over then just saying this is better then that. (I swear I think some of these sites just say that to make a lot of BM hunters bad... its a conspiracy they are trying to keep us down! jk)

[Seilahyn]

Interesting. I took my current saved Crit build in there and took out the Mastery > Haste conversions and it shows a loss in DPS by almost 100.

Given I don't have the most optimized pieces for each slot as I don't know every piece of gear out there.. and I never thought I'd ever raid. One of these days I'll have to research all the gear and pick out the best pieces, once I know what is really best to shoot for. So many contradicting "guides" when it comes to BM. Who do I believe!? What BM god should I bow before?!

[Kurenio]

Ok can't sleep I'll get the screen shots now.

[Kurenio]

Here are my findings (attempted with different pets on each stat prio)

Crit > Mastery > Haste

pulled 16.5k sustained dps with a SB as the pet(for the agility buff).

Crit > Haste > Mastery

Pulled 15.9k sustained dps with a SB as the pet (for the agility buff).

Mastery > Crit > Haste

Pulled 16.3-16.4k sustained dps with a devilsaur as the pet (for crit buff).

Mastery > Haste > Crit

pulled 15.8k sustained dps with a SB as the pet (for the agi buff)

I didn't even bother with putting haste as the first priority... the higher it got on the list the lost the dps became. When mastery and crit are the top 2 stats they are normally pretty close together due to you shooting for crit+mastery gear. hence there not being a huge difference between Crit > Mastery > haste and Mastery > Crit > haste.

EDIT: you can follow what I say or what another guide says. You pay your subscription and you can choose to play the way you like even if it inefficient or silly.

[Shade]

Slightly on and off topic, but I have a question.

What is the cap on AGI, Hit, etc now that we've gone up the level 85?? As in do I need to focus on reforging a few things for Shade? I've never been a hunter that understands the hardcore calculating that makes sense to some people.

[Kurenio]

There is no cap on agility the more agility the better.... your a crack addict and agility is your crack... that pretty much it for that. Hit on the other hand you only need 8% any more is a complete waste.

[Foru21dr]

Slightly on and off topic, but I have a question.

What is the cap on AGI, Hit, etc now that we've gone up the level 85?? As in do I need to focus on reforging a few things for Shade? I've never been a hunter that understands the hardcore calculating that makes sense to some people.

I do know that hit Rating is at 8.0%. Not sure if there is a cap for AGI, Crit, or Mastery.