Geming for Attack Power in Bm

[Adam-Savage]

I'm curios to know why they say you should Gem for Attack Power in BM. Yes you get a boost in Attack power but you also take a large hit in crit as well. With Agility gems changed to Attack power I literally was only gaining less then 50 dps more.

[Slickrock]

At lower levels, it benefits you and your pet more. Once you are 80 and gearing up, Agi is better, and then once you start approaching BiS gear, with plenty of Arp on the gear, gemming for Arp is actually better. But you need to be at least 600 or so passive Arp to start thinking about that.

Another benefit of gemming Agi is that it will work equally well for a MM or Surv off-spec.

I'd only gem straight AP these days for a hunter that is solely leveling as BM.

[Dewclaw]

What's crit supposed to be at anyway?

And for a bm 80 hunter, if crit's naturally high enough, is it better to gem ap? What makes agil better at 80 if a hunter is just bm?

[Tahlian]

It isn't necessarily better, just different. Given the difference between gemming attack power and gemming Agility, it's really more a matter of personal choice. The thinking on BM gemming is this:

Gemming for Attack Power: Your pet hits harder, but you don't gain the crit you would get from gemming AGI.
Gemming AGI: Your pet doesn't hit quite as hard, but you crit more often, which means more Cobra Strike procs, which means more pet crits as well.
Gemming Armor Penetration: Beast Mastery has no special shot like SV or MM does. The vast majority of the spec's hunter damage comes from the hunter class' purely physical attacks like Steady Shot. Therefore, BM can gem for ArPen at an earlier threshold and drop Arcane Shot from their rotation sooner than the other two trees, because they gain more benefit from gemming ArPen, even if the spec doesn't necessarily do as much damage.

So these days, you'll pretty much see BM gemming AP at lower gear levels, then switching to AGI as they start to gear up (or have an off-spec in a different tree for convenience's sake), then gemming ArPen once they have in the neighborhood of 450 armor pen passively from their gear.

[Dewclaw]

What is a good crit rating to be at?

[Tahlian]

I don't think there's a specific crit rating for BM to aim for...I know mine's about 51% unbuffed right now. Bear in mind when I say that, that Tahlian has uncommonly good gear for a beast master. I've never really seen specific discussion of crit for BM, I don't think, but let me do some digging and see what I can find.

EDIT: At first glance, I can't really find a lot about "BM should have this crit rating to be effective." I did find a Scattered Shots article called Beast Mastery 101: http://www.wow.com/2010/02/01/scattered ... stery-101/. That being said, I think it might be simplest to say that every hunter likes crit, regardless of spec, but use femaledwarf.com or another spreadsheet to determine if a piece of gear is overall an upgrade for your spec, your pet, and the raid buffs you get.

[Dewclaw]

Thanks for the info.

I'm torn between re-gemming for agil and leaving my gems as ap (they are expensive, lol).

Ive tried female dwarf but got confused. Gaming seems so complicated sometimes.

If anyone cares to comment, my main hunter is Gabbey on llane.

[Tahlian]

On the whole, everything looks pretty good. Since you have a Survival secondary spec, it might be beneficial for you to gem Agility, because attack power doesn't do much for Survival, but they get a LOT of benefit from Agility and Stamina. The only thing I could really suggest in your current setup is to get rid of the AP/Haste gem you have in one of your pants' slots. If you're trying to get the socket bonus on the pants, try an AP/Crit or Agi/Crit gem instead. You'll get more benefit from it. One other thing I can suggest is to get rid of your Mark of Supremacy and try to find a different trinket. You're way way over the hit cap, so the 128 hit on that thing is just wasted itemization. It's fine till you get something better - but I'd be looking for a replacement. You could run heroic Forge of Souls and try to get the Needle-Encrusted Scorpion out of there. That plus your skull would be a pretty nice setup, or alternately you could do ToC5 Normal for the Banner of Victory, which has a nice Attack Power proc.

If you decide to regem, you don't have to do it all at once. You can just do one or two at a time as you can afford it.

[Dewclaw]

Thanks for the help. I played with dual spec for a bit before I realized I really just want to be a bm. I never use my offspec, so that was 1k gold down the drain lol. I am looking for a new trink. I got mark back when I still needed hit. Of the two trinks you listed, which would you recommend? I'll see if I can find something to replace that oddball gem too.

[Ryai]

Thanks for the help. I played with dual spec for a bit before I realized I really just want to be a bm. I never use my offspec, so that was 1k gold down the drain lol. I am looking for a new trink. I got mark back when I still needed hit. Of the two trinks you listed, which would you recommend? I'll see if I can find something to replace that oddball gem too.

You could make the second specc 'BM tank' as it does make soloing stuff a bit easier tbh. And yeah this is why I never really buy into or bought into dual speccing again or any of my other hunters. It's just not worth it, a DPS specc shouldn't have to be dual specc to do imba dps or be viable.

but it's not as bad as doing it for a mage tho .. frost and fire! frozen and toasty beverages all in the same mage!

[Dewclaw]

Good idea, at least that way my gold won't have been totally wasted.

[Tahlian]

That's how I have my two specs set up. Somehow, my secondary spec wound up being my raiding spec (and the spec I'm in a good 90% of the time), but my primary spec is what I use for soloing instances, with more of the talents for pet survivability taken rather than straight damage dealing. It also gives me the opportunity to play around with raiding changes with my primary spec before making changes to my raid spec that might really mess everything up if I want.

[Rhyela]

It isn't necessarily better, just different. Given the difference between gemming attack power and gemming Agility, it's really more a matter of personal choice. The thinking on BM gemming is this:

Gemming for Attack Power: Your pet hits harder, but you don't gain the crit you would get from gemming AGI.
Gemming AGI: Your pet doesn't hit quite as hard, but you crit more often, which means more Cobra Strike procs, which means more pet crits as well.
Gemming Armor Penetration: Beast Mastery has no special shot like SV or MM does. The vast majority of the spec's hunter damage comes from the hunter class' purely physical attacks like Steady Shot. Therefore, BM can gem for ArPen at an earlier threshold and drop Arcane Shot from their rotation sooner than the other two trees, because they gain more benefit from gemming ArPen, even if the spec doesn't necessarily do as much damage.

So these days, you'll pretty much see BM gemming AP at lower gear levels, then switching to AGI as they start to gear up (or have an off-spec in a different tree for convenience's sake), then gemming ArPen once they have in the neighborhood of 450 armor pen passively from their gear.

So, please at least tell me that gemming for AP isn't stupid or wrong. I feel like I still crit a lot, though I'm not at 50% unbuffed (actually, I'm not sure what I'm at.....). I've been gemming AP since the dawn of time, so I'd hate to have to spend loads of money to switch to agility. X_x Even moreso since in a few months, this all probably won't matter much one way or the other anyway. My raiding guild is casual, just RL friends and family, so I don't see us taking down LK soon, meaning gemming agility really isn't going to matter in the end.

Like how I just talk myself right out of something? LOL

[Adam-Savage]

It isn't necessarily better, just different. Given the difference between gemming attack power and gemming Agility, it's really more a matter of personal choice. The thinking on BM gemming is this:

Gemming for Attack Power: Your pet hits harder, but you don't gain the crit you would get from gemming AGI.
Gemming AGI: Your pet doesn't hit quite as hard, but you crit more often, which means more Cobra Strike procs, which means more pet crits as well.
Gemming Armor Penetration: Beast Mastery has no special shot like SV or MM does. The vast majority of the spec's hunter damage comes from the hunter class' purely physical attacks like Steady Shot. Therefore, BM can gem for ArPen at an earlier threshold and drop Arcane Shot from their rotation sooner than the other two trees, because they gain more benefit from gemming ArPen, even if the spec doesn't necessarily do as much damage.

So these days, you'll pretty much see BM gemming AP at lower gear levels, then switching to AGI as they start to gear up (or have an off-spec in a different tree for convenience's sake), then gemming ArPen once they have in the neighborhood of 450 armor pen passively from their gear.

So, please at least tell me that gemming for AP isn't stupid or wrong. I feel like I still crit a lot, though I'm not at 50% unbuffed (actually, I'm not sure what I'm at.....). I've been gemming AP since the dawn of time, so I'd hate to have to spend loads of money to switch to agility. X_x Even moreso since in a few months, this all probably won't matter much one way or the other anyway. My raiding guild is casual, just RL friends and family, so I don't see us taking down LK soon, meaning gemming agility really isn't going to matter in the end.

Like how I just talk myself right out of something? LOL

Your pet will do more dmg with attack power but you both crit less. It's kinda of a toss up really to which is better. There pretty much the same for dps unless your a min/max dps person. 20 dps doesn't sound like much but add that up over a 6 minutes fight and that's 7,200 less hit points the boss has. I think for a fight like the lich king every tiny bit would matter.

[Slickrock]

Thanks for the help. I played with dual spec for a bit before I realized I really just want to be a bm. I never use my offspec, so that was 1k gold down the drain lol. I am looking for a new trink. I got mark back when I still needed hit. Of the two trinks you listed, which would you recommend? I'll see if I can find something to replace that oddball gem too.

You could make the second specc 'BM tank' as it does make soloing stuff a bit easier tbh. And yeah this is why I never really buy into or bought into dual speccing again or any of my other hunters. It's just not worth it, a DPS specc shouldn't have to be dual specc to do imba dps or be viable.

but it's not as bad as doing it for a mage tho .. frost and fire! frozen and toasty beverages all in the same mage!

Or make the second spec a pvp BM spec.

[Tahlian]

It sounds like for your situation, Rhyela, personal preference will be fine. If you're doing well enough gemmed for attack power to satisfy your raiding group, then more power to you.