Mend Pet

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!

The wait is over!  A few of the 3.1 changes have been anounced for hunters!  If you haven’t read them already…

1. Consumable ammunition has been removed from the game. Arrows and bullets no longer stack, but are not consumed. Ranged attack speed bonus gained from quivers and ammo bags will be preserved in a different capacity.
2. A new tier of hunter pet talents have been added. In particular, this allows Beastmaster hunters to improve their damage per second (DPS) with their 51 point talent.
3. Hunting Party – this talent has been reduced to 3 ranks and also grants a passive bonus to the hunter.
4. Piercing Shots – this talent has been changed. Your Aimed, Steady and Chimera Shots cause the target to bleed for 10/20/30% of damage dealt for 8 sec.
5. Sniper Training – this talent has been changed. After standing still for 6 sec, you gain a 2/4/6% damage bonus to Steady, Aimed and Explosive Shot.
6. We are also looking to add additional trap functionality to Survival.

They are nice.  While it doesn’t affect the nerfitization of Hunters, #1 is by far the most exciting change for me.  I don’t know what I’m gonna do with all the bag space!  I’m just sorry to all the ammo vendors out there.

I hope the new pet talents are really snazzy – I’m pretty happy with the ones I’ve been using, so they better be crazy good.

Over all, they are some attractive changes, but… where’s the major rebalance?

I think some of the other classes have had much more intense changes than we have – and all along they’ve been acting like their going to change what it means to be a Hunter.

I’m sure there is more to come… but this isn’t at all what I was expecting.  It’s not bad, it’s just different.

So Tuesday night I decided to try out Survival in a raid.  I spent a couple hours before hand figuring out where I wanted to put my points, and then developing my own priority shot rotation.  Well, it’s probably not just mine, but I didn’t just copy one from somewhere.  I tested out all the shots and put together what seemed to do the best DPS, then practiced until I felt like I had control of it.

The results? SV does better damage than BM.  But we all have already learned that, so that’s not news.  I was doing between 600 – 800 dps more on the target dummy with my new spec and rotation.

What did surprise me, was the fact that all of our hunters STILL ended up on the bottom half of the DPS charts in Naxx.  I found out there was a stealth nerf of Explosive Shot, which is probably why I was seeing less of a jump in the charts than I was expecting.

It was fun to try something new.  Survival is more complicated, I had 4 shots to use rather than 3, and I had to coordinate them better.  But I don’t think it was enough to get me to switch permanently from BM.  I was still compelled to Revive my pet every time he died, even though it was a stupidly long cast time and he wasn’t doing that much damage anyway.  I really found myself missing Bestial Wrath and Heart of the Phoenix.

I know that it would be better for the raid as a whole to replace me with another Shadow Priest, Mage or Warlock, and part of me feels like there’s no point for me to continue raiding until 3.1, but I’m afraid I’d lose my raid spot if I didn’t continue.

Speaking of which, I’m looking forward to hearing what they’ve got on the plate for 3.1 for Hunters!  However, if they do nothing to us but adjust all the other classes down to be more on par, I’d be just as happy as I would if they buffed us.  Because it would make the encounters a little more challenging if the raid as a whole just did less DPS.  But they’d probably screw that up anyway! 

After much hesitance and resistance from both myself and my poor kitty and moth, I’ve decided to make a temporary switch to Survival.

It was a tough choice.  Like many other hunters, I had to decide which was more important: my enjoyment/loyalty to my spec, or doing a proper amount of DPS.

I am lucky enough to have a great raid and guild who would never pressure me either way.

On the one hand, my Blog clearly states “Beast Mastery” and I’ve held my pets very dear to me since I switched to BM back at 65.  I’ve been a little stubborn about it, and defensive when people say I’m only playing BM because it’s the “easy/highest DPS”.

On the other hand, I hate feeling like my DPS is bringing the guild down, and while I don’t care if I top the charts, I am a DPS class, and if I can’t do my job, well… what’s the point?

But after going from top 3 DPS to bottom 3 DPS in our raid just because of the changes they’ve made to my damage and pet, my choice was pretty clear.

So now I’ve really got to look into the spec and the rotations that have been suggested and tested by the hunters I respect.  I’ve been browsing them casually so far, but now I’ve got to actually understand the why and how of it all.

This could be a good thing though.

It’s an opportunity to try something new, and maybe I’ll find out that this is a better spec for me.  Or maybe it’ll renew my interest in the Beast Master tree.  Only time (and lots of ammo) will tell.  At least it will give me something to right about, if nothing else!

*starts researching*