Spec Rage / Hurry Up 4.0.6!

[Rikaku]

Ok so... I have to vent. And I figured, who better to vent to then the Hunter community right? Maybe some of you guys share my pain.

I hate Survival.

I'm sorry SV lovers, I'm sure you felt the same way when you had to be BM during TBC, but... I seriously hate SV. I don't think I've ever had so much "un-fun" on my Hunter in my life @_@

"So Rikaku, why are you SV? Play BM! You love BM!"

Oh... I love BM. I've been BM since WoW launched. I *love* BM.

The problem is, I'm raiding. For the first time in years I'm actually a dedicated raider for my guild. I never raided before due to IRL obligations such as college, and thus this is my first time raiding. Woohoo! I love seeing these boss encounters! I love the action and the fights! However, the issue is, as BM I lose around 2.5k-3k DPS compared to my SV spec (at last recount check, which was about a month ago). Now normally I'd just "meh meh" that and still go as BM. However, there's one problem. With these fights being a bit harder this time, sometimes my guild and I find ourselves racing against a clock to beat an enrage timer. Sometimes we're down to 5 secs before an enrage timer ends and its basically "auto-wipe" time; times like that, 3k DPS is a lot. It makes a difference.

So for the first time... I'm angry. I can't justify bringing my beloved spec or pets because the dps I lose is just too much and I could (theoretically) wipe the raid.

But man... I hate SV. It's so boring *headdesk*

And I'm not done @_@

WHY ISN'T 4.0.6 HERE YET? Seriously! I wanna raid with my SB. I wanna bring my exotics. I wanna hit KC and hear that sound as my pet listens to his command. I wanna hear my SB's loud obnoxious roar in the midst of battle.

Blast you Blizzard. Bring it out already. I WANNA RE-JUSTIFY MY BM AND ENJOY MY HUNTER T^T

[Vephriel]

Hopefully it will be arriving on Tuesday, so it's just a few more days. *crosses fingers*

I'm really anxious for the patch to drop as well. So many pets to tame, rares to visit...also I have a stupid amount of Archaeology relics filling up my bags that I refuse to vendor until the patch since they're getting a huge buff to their sell prices.

[Lisaara]

Same here. Oh I feel your pain.....;-;

[Sasrei]

I enjoy Surv, and my guild likes the buff and extra CC for Nef. Im glad BM is getting buffed and MM too but I havent tried BM for raiding, and am not sure if I would.. but who knows.

Im not enjoying however is my 4-5k dps loss in Surv spec. Used to do 14-15k.. now I barely push 10k. In MM spec I am doing 12-13k.. so I am looking forward to the patch and not looking forward to the patch.

[zedxrgal]

I'm very anxious for the patch myself and I LOVED LOVED LOVED BM but changing to SV was the best move for now. So my little exotics are sitting waiting patiently for me but probably getting bored that I am not using them. Poor Nibbler (Krush). Hasn't nibbled a single mob in days.

[SgtMakkie]

I feel torn at the moment. Having been using SV as the raiding spec I've really come to enjoy it, the fact it does rather nice amounts of damage is just a wonderful bonus. I have also been BM since day 1 and currently have too many pets in my stables that I can't use simply because BM isn't viable at the moment. I also prefer SV over BM for Heroics, Wyvern sting is just too useful.

However I don't agree with the upcoming nerf on SV. Why o why can't they just give the planned buffs to BM/MM and leave SV where it is. It seems that every expansion 1 spec gets a little ahead and BOOM out comes Blizzards nerf bat. In light of the planned changes I still don't see BM being raid viable. MM might well be, guild mate has been testing all 3 on the PTR and so far thinks MM/SV will still be the way to go.

(imo for BM to be raid viable our pets will need to do waay more damage..!)

[Lisaara]

I feel torn at the moment. Having been using SV as the raiding spec I've really come to enjoy it, the fact it does rather nice amounts of damage is just a wonderful bonus. I have also been BM since day 1 and currently have too many pets in my stables that I can't use simply because BM isn't viable at the moment. I also prefer SV over BM for Heroics, Wyvern sting is just too useful.

However I don't agree with the upcoming nerf on SV. Why o why can't they just give the planned buffs to BM/MM and leave SV where it is. It seems that every expansion 1 spec gets a little ahead and BOOM out comes Blizzards nerf bat. In light of the planned changes I still don't see BM being raid viable. MM might well be, guild mate has been testing all 3 on the PTR and so far thinks MM/SV will still be the way to go.

(imo for BM to be raid viable our pets will need to do waay more damage..!)

A little? SV is A LOT more ahead than BM and MM.....

Blizzard made BM raid viable because the exotics bring extras, whether you agree with that or not. I've been complimented in heroics and regulars for having my corehound with me and using it on the last boss or my spirit beast giving the healer a hand with things get hairy.

[SgtMakkie]

Taluwen, I was speaking figuratively

If you look back over the last 3 expansions each one of the Hunter spec's has been dominate. Crusade had BM, Wrath had MM and until the patch Cata was firmly SV. I've gone BM for many Heroic fights purely to use Bloodlust.

Patch notes (taken from US blizz site but might be off - apologies if so) relevant to BM:
(Solid dps increase to help mitigate the time the pet can't be on the target)
Arcane Shot damage has been increased by 15%.
Animal Handler now provides a passive 25% bonus to attack power, up from 15%.

(A nice buff to the main damage talent, but still not enough)
Kill Command's damage has been increased by 20%.

Plus the ability to spec for another 6% pet damage with the BM extra pet talents.... Nice buffs, but I just don't see them being equal to MM or SV. One thing I would like to see change, is the range requirement of KC being removed or at least increased. This can actually be a cause of you not using another ability for 1-2 seconds while you try to get KC off... This is a dps loss!

[Lisaara]

I do agree with the KC thing......thats annoying as heck....x.x;

[Tahlian]

OP, I'm afraid you're still not going to be happy come 4.0.6. Yes, BM is getting buffed. Unfortunately, according to the PTR number crunchers, the top raid spec is going to become Marksman, once you achieve a certain level of gear (4 pc T11, if I remember right). SV and BM are about equal, all things considered, which is a small improvement...but I still don't think it's going to be enough. I too am a dyed-in-the-wool beast master....but I've been forced to offspec Survival currently because I want to raid. And yes, I hate it.

And quite frankly, even if the pendulum swung the other way and BM was once again the premier raiding spec, I very much doubt the lot of BM hunters would improve, because the QQ at "a spec where your pet does all the work" being on the top of the heap would mean we'd never get a moment's peace to actually enjoy raiding as beast masters. It seems no matter what Blizzard does, Beast Mastery is going to be the oddball spec that never gets the respect it deserves.

I don't like it...and I will make a good attempt at raiding as BM once patch comes. But I really don't know how well it's going to work. Beast masters are deprived of their hardest-hitting "shot" in fights with air phases and lots of target switching...at least while your pet switches targets. That has a direct, noticeable, and terribly detrimental effect on our DPS - to the point that the 3% damage buff we bring ourselves plus whatever pet buff we bring may not be enough to justify staying in the spec.

I had thought that giving BM one more shot might help those situations. Have it be mutually exclusive with Kill Command - in other words, if your pet's in melee range, you use KC. If it can't be, use the shot. Make it do approximately the same damage as KC so that it's not an inherent benefit to not send your pet in and just pewpew away. If they feel really froggy, maybe put a debuff on the target to give a small damage bonus to the next Kill Command landed. One the mob lands or the pet gets to the target, KC overrides the shot, and that KC gets a little boost as a reward for keeping the pet in the fight like we're supposed to. Just a wild idea, really...I'm not terribly good at the Elitist Jerk-type math minutiae. I was just trying to think of something that wouldn't be ungodly complicated to help even out the fact that BM is often deprived of Kill Command in situations where neither SV nor MM is deprived of their signature shot and by extension, the big DPS from those signature shots.

[seclipse]

playing on the ptr and as sv i was still whoopin mm an bm hunters lol. yeah my DPS is lower compared to live, but not alot. im not to worried about MM surpassing sv much if any. the number crunches may say one thing, but in game is another lol. in wrath when MM became the new ultimate spec with armor pen, i still was top of the charts with SV.

while i dont call myself a expert on hunters specs, im a perfectionist when it comes to raiding.

all we can do is wait and see, the patch isnt out *yet* so it could still change. but all in its not going to affect me much.

i love BM, but not for raidin, it brings buffs, but in all the higher DPS of other specs still highly outweighs the buffs of BM

[Rikaku]

OP, I'm afraid you're still not going to be happy come 4.0.6. Yes, BM is getting buffed. Unfortunately, according to the PTR number crunchers, the top raid spec is going to become Marksman, once you achieve a certain level of gear (4 pc T11, if I remember right). SV and BM are about equal, all things considered, which is a small improvement...but I still don't think it's going to be enough. I too am a dyed-in-the-wool beast master....but I've been forced to offspec Survival currently because I want to raid. And yes, I hate it.

Your entire post is exactly fitting. I mean you hit the nail on the head.

The problem with BM is that Blizzard isn't sure where it's going to go. Blizzard doesn't even know which direction it's travelling in.

For those who don't believe me.

A year ago, Blizzard said "we want to reward harder playstyles with more dps." It was one of their justifications for why specs like SV should do more dmg than BM. However, anyone who plays SV now will tell you it's rotation is so much easier to maintain and play then BM. Any good skilled BM hunter will tell you its way harder to manage your own rotation and make sure you pet is where he needs to be and alive, then hitting the 3 buttons that make up SV's rather relaxed rotation.

A little over a year ago, Blizzard said "we feel BM's pets are doing too much of the BM Hunter's total dps". They nerfed. They didn't like how our pets were doing upwards of 35-40% of our total dps. I can tell you now from my own dps numbers, my pet is doing 45% of my Hunters damage when I'm BM.

How is our spec supposed to get any help when even Blizzard is flipping around not sure what the heck is going on with it's on ideals?

It's infuriating. Any spec would be infuriated at this.

However, Tahlian, while BM won't be the best (nor do I want it to be the best) it will be far more "justifiable" then it is now. And I, personally, am nowhere near 4p T11. I got too many valor points to go XD Plus, BM isn't 3k DPS behind SV in my points. If it's at least within 1k dps of each other, I can justify in bringing the spec in bringing buffs my raid doesn't have (LOL we seriously almost have no raiding Druids, wtf right? XD) which (in my own mind) justifies bringing a slightly lower dps spec I know I love.

[Cerah]

It sounds like you're raiding with your guild, not PuGs. Guilds are supposed to be made up of people who understand and respect each other, so if you really want to raid as a BM, your guildies will understand if they're the type of guild worth being with in the first place! If not, screw'em! It's your account, your $15/month. I happily raid in BM, in PuGs for the most part since my guild's not big enough to do raids, and I don't frankly care what anyone has to say about my play style.

Besides, with every single patch that comes out, the "best" spec changes, so you have a two in three chance of being wrong anyway. As long as you're having fun, screw what anyone else says. If you're not enjoying the game, what's the point in playing?

[Boven]

I really enjoy BM. In WotLK, I raided as SV since it outperformed BM and there wasn't really any way to justify raiding as BM.

When our raid leader (another hunter) was putting together our Cata raid team, I fully expected to be raiding as SV. I was pleasantly surprised when he told me to stay BM if I wanted. Thank goodness for pet buffs. My dps is well below the leader's SV spec, but we'll see if they're closer after the patch.

When we were learning the Maloriak fight, our warlock sometimes let CoT fall off the boss. He'd get distracted or be in the middle of moving somewhere and not get it back up, or worse, he'd die. It felt pretty danged good when one of the other raid members (before I even had a chance to suggest it) asked whether any hunter pets had something like CoT. It felt good being able to justify being BM, and GIR, my corehound, made the 'lock's life a little easier.

[Rikaku]

It sounds like you're raiding with your guild, not PuGs. Guilds are supposed to be made up of people who understand and respect each other, so if you really want to raid as a BM, your guildies will understand if they're the type of guild worth being with in the first place! If not, screw'em! It's your account, your $15/month. I happily raid in BM, in PuGs for the most part since my guild's not big enough to do raids, and I don't frankly care what anyone has to say about my play style.

Besides, with every single patch that comes out, the "best" spec changes, so you have a two in three chance of being wrong anyway. As long as you're having fun, screw what anyone else says. If you're not enjoying the game, what's the point in playing?

I do raid with my guild. I love my guildies, been with them for 4.5 years now (which is an eternity in MMO-Life XD). And they know I love BM more then anything. But the issue isn't that they're forcing me. Nah. Quite opposite, I'm making myself do it purely because of the fights. My guild is still learning some of the boss encounters. Sometimes, we get really close to wiping or hitting that enrage timer. When my guild downs a boss at about 5 secs before (or after) an enrage timer, that 3k DPS difference I bring may just be enough to tilt the scale in my favor.

I'm sure down the road, when we have the encounters down like its nothing, I'll be able to bring my BM without fear that I'm dragging the guild down. And I'm hoping that after patch, that I may even be able to bring BM cause to me 1k dps isn't really going to make or break a fight.

I'm not really an elitist in that everything "MUST BE THE BEST IT CAN ABSOLUTELY BE AT ALL TIMES". But I am pushing myself to the best of my abilities for the progression of my guild.

[Samarachan]

Man I've had it, I want my OCJ, Pogeyan and purple owl skin >:(

I also want my Archeaology prices to get buffed so I can finaly vendor all the trash I saved in my bags.

I also want some bugs fixed *looks at Fire in the sky >_>*



Itt: Can we just whine?

[Vephriel]

I merged your post over here Samara since we had this topic going already. ^^

[Vampiretooth]

As i see, many of us agree, that we all love BM because of our pets. Same here. If i think how much time i wasted to tame all the pets i have... all the fun i have with them... oh yes. As for the dungeons we have seen what Cata has brought. You can get kicked because u don't have enough dps. With SV spec we are the ultimate CC machine, but hey... nobody want's cc's and breaks them. Nice. After that we see wipes. Not to mention the strong aoe aspect of the SV spec. I just hate blizz, because they took our volley away.

I have been on ptr now for almost 2 weeks. Tested mainly MM and BM. I simply don't like SV anymore with all those nerfs. With MM i simply have more fun and can do with no probs 13k dps on a dummy. The bad side of ptr is simply the player base. All those 2 weeks i have never finished one instance till the end. (premades *cough... cough*). So... i am just waiting for 4.0.6. to hit and MM here i come.

P.s.: But i really hope i can use BM in the raids too. ^^ (depends on the encounter).

[Rawr]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/ "Update #2 - Yes, Patch 4.0.6 is next week, stop asking."

[Sasrei]

The one thing is though I do like the thought of raiding with my KK again and my spirit beasts, I just cant in my mind agree with making our now top dps pushed to the back of the pack. Blizzard basically keeps forcing us into one spec though they say its not what they want, but thats what happens. Surv gets worse actually as you get better gear from what ive been reading because it doesnt scale properly with Agility while MM will get better with gear. I enjoyed being top dps in my guild, as heck its about time but now with my current dps on the ptr I am thinking I may be close to the back of the dps which is depressing to me.

I am not going to really judge until its live and I can see how it is like in raid settings, but I play survival for the buff and the extra CC which is pretty important on the Nef fight, as well as the extra AOE damage as I am the one solo dpsing/kiting Magmaw worms, though some are saying its not worth it but it is all a bunch of "could bes" so I wont know until raid day after the patch.

I could go BM spec but I play survival spec as I like my target dps as some of the fights my pet wont be dpsing as much as he would like to with air phases and such. I dont think my guild would mind me going BM spec but I want to down the boss asap so bringing in 3-4k less dps when everything counts I dont think I could..