Monday, April 16, 2012

So... Guild *wants* me to go BM...

I'm writing to ask this because I honestly don't know --anything--about BM except that you press KC a lot when your pet's out of range.

The primary reason for this is the 3% raid damage buff as we lack the other toons who can bring the buff.



So my question is:

Is it viable to sacrifice DPS as MM to bring the raid buff? Our group runs around 100kDPS so that's 3kDPS the BM buff will give. If I can DPS within 3k as BM as I do as MM, it *seems* making the switch to BM is logical.

Is there anything I'm missing?



I'm definitely willing to do it to help my raid. But I want to make sure I'm doing the right thing.

Also, how is BM AoE?

I'm a little busy atm and can't actually spec it.



Any raiding BM advice would be greatly appreciated.

Any MM or SV hunters asked to switch to BM for the buff care to share how it worked out?
If that buff is missing from the raid and the only way to get it is through BM then you are benefiting an entire raid at the cost of some DPS from you. The overall DPS boost for everyone would be much greater.

I'm writing to ask this because I honestly don't know --anything--about BM except that you press KC a lot when your pet's out of range.

The primary reason for this is the 3% raid damage buff as we lack the other toons who can bring the buff.



So my question is:

Is it viable to sacrifice DPS as MM to bring the raid buff? Our group runs around 100kDPS so that's 3kDPS the BM buff will give. If I can DPS within 3k as BM as I do as MM, it *seems* making the switch to BM is logical.

Is there anything I'm missing?



I'm definitely willing to do it to help my raid. But I want to make sure I'm doing the right thing.

Also, how is BM AoE?

I'm a little busy atm and can't actually spec it.



Any raiding BM advice would be greatly appreciated.

Any MM or SV hunters asked to switch to B

M for the buff care to share how it worked out?


If they don't mind the personal dps los, I wouldn't mind.

Anyway hit>haste<=>crit<=>mastery

and pls make sure your pet has all the speed talent it can learn, and make sure you always have hunter's mark on target.

try to get the pet that can compliment your raid either buff or debuff.
remember that 3% is for all your raid members.
i took hunterunion.com advice and have their BM spec... i like it but was never told to take it lol... most think bm is a noob spec.

i just did top dps/damage on BH but i was only at 15k
i will be switching to MM pve soon once there is more info on it haha
in bm i start with
mark, immolation trap, serpent sting, Bestial wrath, kill command, arcane arcane arcane lol

Shot priority
* Focus Fire when it’s ready
* Kill Shot (if available)
* Kill Command
* Arcane Shot
* Cobra Shot

just make sure u have the sting up and i personally love to throw immolation traps into my ration whenever it is off cd.. just aim for the bosses underneath shadow
BM is actually on par with MM in 10 mans, if you are missing the 3% dmg buff you should go with BM the upside to BM is that it has the ability with exotic pets to fill couintless other raid debufffs. i rock out with a trex (crit and MS) and spiritbeast (spot smart heal and cat buff) it is super important that the buffs are covered.

my MM spec is raid utility maximised which is why i could be on par BM/MM or maybe the BM is a viable spec
I love BM you are more involved in the rotation

SV and MM are to rng based for me the procs dont always happen when you need them to

BM with its BW/TBW you get to decide when you to use it and with its KC, Arcane x 6, KC it puts out alot of damage when you decide to do so
Thanks for the info.

Good stuff so far.

I'm 100% willing to do whatever benefits the raid, even at the cost of my personal DPS.



I think my main concern was that running a BM in theory to fill the buff gap would be better than the results produced in a real-raid situation.

Also the AOE concerns me as there are a lot of encounters where I'm counted on to do heavy AOE.



Any other advice/suggestions/info appreciated.
Knowing how to use and when to use BW is of utmost importance. A couple of tips:

Don't use your haste increasing effects during BW. It's better to save those for when you need to replenish focus.

For instance, Focus Fire? It comes at the cost of your pet's attack speed. I would recommend using BW when your pet has 4-5 stacks of Frenzy, and leave focus fire alone until BW wears off.

Second, Make sure you blow all your cooldowns that you can, and time them to BW. It makes a huge difference considering you will never see so many Arcane shots shot in so little time. With the recent buff to arcane shot, this is even more important than before.

As far as your pets go, there's a couple of options worth considering...

For AoE damage, a Chimera is worth getting if the fight is longer than a worm can burrow for. Because the chimera's ability has no cooldown, see? Also, because it's cunning, it should be able to outdps a tenacity pet on a single target quite easily.

Spirit beasts can give you a self heal, which can save your ass. Consider keeping one on your "bench" at all times, if you can find one.

Devilsaurs give a %5 crit buff which work with Leader of the pack, though not with Rampage. Still, it's incredibly useful most of the time. I would recommend finding one of these, or a Wolf if you don't mind losing the healing debuff.

BM is a lot of fun, and I would say we're the most versatile hunters. Heck, the Boulder (my Shale Spider) can offtank, and that's always fun to brag about.


I wouldn't recommend going BM just for the sake of getting the Ferocious Inspiration buff. In 4.0.6 MM is the top DPS spec; and for raids, it would be more of your guild's benefit to spec in MM because of which.

You Steady to be above the minimum Focus amount for it. Then use it and Arcane Shot to bleed off Focus.


BM Hunters do not use Steady Shot, they use Cobra Shot. Cobra dose more damage than Steady in addition to refreshing your serpent sting.
Heres what you are going to need to be an affective BM Hunter (if you make the change)

First off for aoe BM hunters absolutely slay on aoe damage and the reason is obvious, worm-chimera both have a channeled aoe and as such only BM hunters have access to pets with their own aoe damage. Our other huge buff in AoE damage is the combination of multi shot and BW think Feral druid berzerk and swipe spam.

Second, get lots and lots of haste as a BM since our rotation is somewhat simplistic the more haste you have the more focus you can regen (remember with focused aim we get 15% more haste so this scales very nice)

Your priority is as such, kill shot, focused aim, kill command, serpent sting, arcane shot, cobra shot. Rapid Fire is a great cd use after you have used Beastial wrath and it has worn off or during heroism/bloodlust/ancient hysteria. Kill command should be used twice during BW so save it if you are about to use BW and never use Focused aim before BW you want those frenzy stacks on your pet during it.

The obvious facts, be aware of raid mechanics in full il359 gear your pet is worth 39% of your total dps so if there is a mechanic that can kill it don't let that happen. Hunters mark always on your focus target.

Ideal pets to use. The obvious facts if you can cover a raid buff then go for it just make sure your pet is cunning or ferocity however. That being said you are not limited to just using exotic pets for raiding the 2nd ability on most of the pets is a pvp utility ability and the first being a raid utility ability so if you want sunders grab a raptor want 4% melee grab ravager :) , personally Iam still impartial to using Devilsaurs.

Now a neat little trick from one experienced BM hunter to a possible up and coming one ;) if you get a pause in a boss fight where you can't actually dps and heroism/bloodlust has been blow, switch out your pet for your corehound and pop its ancient hysteria ;) your pet wasn't in the fight so its going to benefit from it and is going to be a seriously nasty dps hike for you (also this will benefit other pet classes whos pets are proc/summoned)
BM is now raid viable since patch 4.0.6, so its not a bad thing to be. Although not as much as MM per say, it does do a lot more then what it use to at 10-12k. Its more 16-20k DPS in 25mans using a spirit beast.
our best hunter last night as we were doing omni defense was pulling about 21k

the dps it seems is more or less comparable to MM, probably slightly lower, just make sure your pet doesn't die.



the dps of it is pretty good if played right.
Seconded on the aoe front. BM should be better than MM on aoe fights (but not as good as surv with spread) because you can fire off twice as many multi shots while using TBW. Also can use a chim/worm. If you don't like having to cast the chim or worm's aoe ability just add:

/cast [pet:chimaera]frost breath

To your multi shot and that should do the trick (unless I mispelled something, macroing on the fly without testing can be iffy).

If your guild is having trouble filling that raid buff it is possible they are missing one of the buffs an exotic could bring too. Warcrafthuntersunion has a nice guide on pet raid buffs.
And SV has Hunting party, which is a 10% haste boost to all party members. That isn't anything to sneer at. And MM has Trueshot aura.

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