Mend Pet

The idea of dual-specs hasn’t really been a huge concern for me.  When it was announced, I mostly just thought it’d be nice to have a second spec for my priest but didn’t think much of it.

But now that the PTR is live, the prospect of dual-specs is much more real.  I’ve had time to think it over, how it’s going to affect the game as whole, and specifically how it will affect me.

After reading /hug‘s post about Dual-specs, which lead me to Big Bear Butt‘s post on Dual specs, which then lead me to the post on Forever a Noob about the topic, I started to really develop my thoughts on the issue.  Or rather, on the issues within the issue.

Aurik‘s post was mostly in support, or at least, not against dual specs.  While I think his post was a little more self-oriented, about how they won’t encounter these specific problems himself – which is fine, and I am in a similar boat, I won’t personally be hugely affected.  But nevertheless, there are problems that will occur, and that can’t be denied.

Dual specs in general – I am a big supporter of.  If it means an easier method of switching between your PvP and PvE, or your raiding and grinding specs, I’m all for that.  It’ll make a smoother transition for those changes, with the new item rack and glyph swapping and bar swapping.  I’m all for making things more convenient.

What am I against?  Mid-raid respecing.  Being able to change your spec between one boss fight and the next.  And I have two main reasons for this.

1: Hybrids being pressured into a role they don’t like.

The closest I play to a hybrid is my priest.  He’s a healer.  However, given the choice and ease of dual-specs, I’d love to be able to go shadow for questing.  I find shadow really fun for grinding and questing.  However, I got to be shadow in an instance once, and it was not my cup of tea.

If I was in a raid, happily healing away, and the for some reason it was decided that we didn’t need the extra heals at some point and I was asked to switch to Shadow… well, I’d be upset.  That’s not what I enjoy, that’s not why I’m here.  Also, I just plain don’t know much about being a Shadow Priest.

Now I’m sure there are druids out there that love being a Boomkin.  But ask them to switch to kitty, and they aren’t that happy.  Hybrids are like several different classes in one – and it’s very possible to not like these other classes, even if they’re available to you.  Maybe they like kitty for soloing, that doesn’t mean they’ll enjoy it or be effective at it in a raid environment.

We’ve been surviving for years with single-specs.  Of course some people are quickly willing to change up their spec for a different raid night, and that’s all well and good.  But being able to have a completely different raid composition from fight to fight – it’s just not right.

2: Pure DPS classes becoming fillers, losing preference to hybrids.

While Bear Butt and Dinaer both focused on Mages and Rogues as if they are the only pure DPS classes, Hunters and Warlocks are in the exact same boat.  Sure, we have a pet to help us DPS and to make soloing easier, but in the end, all four classes have roughly the same job -  Kill things quickly.

Yes, we have three different trees as well, and there are differences between each.  But they do not fill different roles.  Unlike the trees for hybrids which focus on different roles that affect everyone, the 12 trees of these 4 DPS classes focus rather on different play styles and preferences about ways to kill stuff, which mostly only affects the player.

As a hunter, my options are: Have my pet help me kill stuff, have my arrows help me kill stuff, or have my traps help me kill stuff.

My mage:  Burn stuff, freeze stuff, or purply-pink explode stuff.

You get the point.

With the restriction of filling one role effectively being removed, why would you choose a pure DPS class over a hybrid?  Because the pure DPS classes put out more DPS than a hybrid ever could?  Given similar gear and skill, this isn’t necessarily the case.  Our Shadow Priests can easily top the charts over rogues and hunters.

In the end…

Again, the problem for me is not the ability to change specs – of course that is already a feature in the game, and always has been.  It’s the ability to change on a whim, or on someone else’s whim.  The fact that they are making it so easy that people will feel that no one has an excuse to not be an expert in two roles or trees.

These issues won’t affect me personally that much.  I have a pretty good guild, and my raid spot is pretty much a sure thing.  I don’t really PUG, and my hybrid class doesn’t really raid, so (as of yet) I don’t have to worry about being forced into Shadow.

But I know people who will be affected. And it will affect me as far as loot council goes.  We’ll have to make sure we know what people have as their offspec, and will have to know how often they use it and give them preference to others, possibly.

My Suggestion

Go back to the original plan: You have to go to your trainer to switch specs.  Make it no more than a more convenient method of swapping specs, which is already clearly a feature in the game.  Make it an improvement rather than a whole new feature.

All jokes aside, while there may be no real changes to the BM tree itself, we do get a few new things that weren’t listed directly on the PTR notes.  Since I’m not on the PTR (and I’m at work), I can’t really outline these very well, but we do have new pet talents and the Call Stabled Pet spell (30 minute cooldown!).

Drotara at Less QQ, More Pew Pew has some good screenshots of the new talents, so check that out for details.

My thoughts?  I know that’s what you’re here for.

I am actually quite excited about the new Call Stabled Pet spell.  Right now, I don’t switch my pets up very much.  But now that I’ll be able to do it mid-raid, the different pet abilities will start to have a bigger impact.  I might grab an armor reducing pet when I realize the raid has a composition that would allow for it or something.  It’ll be nice to put those 5 stable spots to good use, more than just for my tank and DPS pets.

On the new talents – they look pretty darn nice.  On the one hand, I’m going to have to sacrifice Rabid, Call of the Wild or Heart of the Phoenix, but on the other hand… freaking sweet.

BEAST MASTERY

• Improved Aspect of the Hawk now has a new spell effect.
• Improved Wing Clip: This talent has been removed.

Sorry, did I say exciting?  I meant nonexistent.

A new animation, and the removal of a talent which ISN’T EVEN IN THE BEAST MASTERY TREE.

But there is this sneaky little one, which is kinda BM, and it makes me quite sad:

Stampede (rhino) only affects 1 target, but adds a 25% bleed damage debuff (that does not stack with Mangle etc.) in addition to its knockback.

/sadface.

No more punting groups of people around in AV!  No more Rhino Bowling!  Well, it’ll empty up a stable spot for me… being able to knock stuff around was the only reason I had the Rhino.

I almost don’t want to show these results, because my DPS has been so sad for the last few weeks.  Last night I tried out the ‘new’ BM, after patch 3.0.9 unnerfed some things.  I tested out on the target dummy first, and it wasn’t looking good, but I decided to see how it held up in a raid.

What I was expecting from the raid: Low DPS, but above last place. Mana regen problems, because my BM spec is less efficient.

What I got from the raid: Moderate DPS, quite viable when compared to Survival.  Still not back in first place (where we belong! hehe) Very few mana regen issues, I ran out of mana on a few of the fights, but usually only right at the end of the fight.

Here are 4 Noth attempts.  This was the only fight that I felt was a good measure of stand-there-and-shoot DPS that I could get multiple examples of.  I would have liked to use Patchwerk, but I wasn’t there for him a couple of times.

Keep in mind, my gear has improved over these weeks, so some DPS can be attributed to that. Also note these are sorted by damage done rather than by DPS.  The raid composition is almost identical each time.

Make sure to look at the other Hunters too, their gear is comparable to mine.

Pre 3.0.8 – BM (with cat) – 2975 DPS

This was the hay-day of Beast Mastery in Wrath… I generally kept to the top of the charts, and I quite liked it there.  All hunters in the raid are BM at this point, and we’re all doing pretty well.

Shot Priority: Serpent Sting > Steady Shot.

Post 3.0.8 – BM (with cat) -2481 DPS

Beast Mastery after the massive nerf.  about 500 DPS less than I was doing before… boo!  As you can see, the overall raid DPS had increased, but all the hunters had decreased.  I believe the other hunters had switched to Survival already, but I can’t remember for sure.   Their DPS wasn’t very nice either though, as you can see.

Shot Priority: Serpent Sting > Arcane Shot > Steady Shot.

Post 3.0.8 – SV (with moth) – 2534 DPS

My one and only raid as SV.  My DPS still wasn’t much better as Survival, but it’s still better than nerfed BM at this point.  I wasn’t completely used to SV yet, so there was also that.  The other two hunters were also SV at this point, and they were both doing more DPS.  Not sure why mine is so low at this point, but I wasn’t much higher than this the whole raid.

Shot Priority: Serpent Sting > Explosive Shot > Aimed Shot > Steady Shot

Post 3.0.9 – BM (with moth) - 2838 DPS

Ha!  How ’bout that.  While my target dummy tests showed a solid decrease in DPS compared to Survival, BM doesn’t seem to be faring badly when it comes to practical testing in a raid environment!

I apologize for not using WWS, the WWS hasn’t been posted yet.  I’ll try to switch the pic when it does get posted.

Shot Priority: Serpent Sting > Arcane Shot > Steady Shot.

Conclusion

I’m sticking with Beast Mastery.  Maybe it’s not the #1 DPS spec, but I like it a lot, an now that it’s not marking me as lowest DPS in the raid, I don’t mind so much.

This may not be how the results look for everyone, but this is what seems to be working for me.  Survival was fun, but I didn’t like my squishy useless pet.

If anyone else has given a try as BM since 3.0.9, please let me know how it goes!

Patch 3.0.9! Time to fix Beast Mastery!

Well, not quite.  As you may know, I want to get back to BM as soon as possible… so first thing I did when I got on after today’s patch was run some Target Dummy tests.  First, I ran with my current Survival spec.  Then after a couple of attempts, I switched to a Beast Mastery spec.

Some conditions of the tests:  My glyphs are spec’d for BM still. I used all my cooldowns whenever I could. Because of how long (or short) it took me to OOM in BM, I still only had time to use BW once.  Also, this is taking advantage of the 3/3 in the Sniper Training talent, which isn’t always applicable in raid fights.  No kill shots were used.

Brajana & Ambrose VS Heroic Training Dummy

As you can see, Survival is still quite the master. More DPS and better mana efficiency. But the numbers for Beast Mastery have improved for sure, most notably pet DPS (as to be expected from the changes).

But is it enough for BM to be viable in a raid environment? I’m sticking with it for tonight’s Naxx-25, and I’ll be sure to update with results when I know how it’s doing!