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Some people might think that it is too early to start deciding on new specs and talent builds. But it seems with recent posts Blizzard doesn’t like the idea of our shot rotations consisting of Serpent Sting and Steady Shot, which you can read right here. Regardless of what some people think, these changes are big. Especially if this is the design philosophy Blizzard wants to implement. If Ghostcrawler is being truthful in his statements, they want to end the days of single ability shot rotations. Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as the most common complaint heard about Beast Mastery was it monotony. The concern, which Levidia said so well:
That’s fine. So can we expect a damage transition out of steady and into instants? (steady -dmg, Instants +dmg) Or are we just going to get to the point where steady is just worse than instants forcing us to use instants resulting in lower total damage and worse mana efficiency?
So with that said, we know the 50/21 build is being broken. I don’t see Blizzard going back on this change. They obviously didn’t like it being the most popular spec, and I am willing to bet that some designer somewhere is upset most of the raiders did not want to use their exotic pets. So spending a little one-on-one time with a talent calculator inevitably comes up with some fun builds. What other changes Blizzard rolls out remains to be seen. But let’s speculate a little.
0/53/18 – Lock and Load with Arcane Shot
I’ve accidentally clicked this build in a few times when playing with the calculator. I get down to Lock and Load and go “Oh yeah, I would have to use Arcane Shot with this.” Most of the time I then reset the tree and move on. But it’s there in the back of my mind, wondering how good it would do.
The first thing to figure out is how much damage Arcane Shot is going to do. The formula for Arcane Shot is [RAP * 0.15 + 492. In-game I have 3855 Attack Power (The Armory doesn't show buffs anymore). So we can figure my Arcane Shot will do:
3855*.15+492 = 1070 Arcane Damage
Factoring in the talent for 15% more damage and we get 1070+15% = 1230 Arcane damage. So now we need to compare it to what Steady Shot would do in terms of damage. Looking at the numbers I used in my other post, post-nerf Steady Shot will max out at 1211 damage without any external buffs before damage reduction. So we know Arcane Shot will do more damage than Steady Shot if we are only using the numbers of my unbuffed self.
The idea behind the build would be your general PvE shot rotation of applying Serpent Sting, maintaining with Chimera Shot, and filling with Steady Shot. The difference would be firing off two Arcane Shots once Lock and Load procs. Now a completely off-the-wall alternative to that would be some kind of 41/30 build. A little crazy, but you give up Chimera Shot, Marked for Death, and a few more talents to pick-up Hunter versus Wild, Lightning Reflexes and 2/3 Killer Instinct. Coupled with Combat Experience and you are going to have literal boat-loads of AP. Or get even more crazy and get all the way down to Expose Weakness *and* get Trueshot Aura. Oh the humanity!
But I must admit, the little voice in my head says it wants to be Survival. It keeps saying "Hey, let's see who we can out-DPS while using the current inferior spec."
5/15/51 - Hawked Survival
Aspect of the Hawk is great talent in so many builds. That's why it easy to see many builds dropping 5-7 points into BM for IAotH and Focused Fire. Popular MM builds (11/53/7) do it too, but go far enough to get Aspect Mastery. That's why I am interested in trying this build. With the Survival talents, the critical strike chance of Explosive Shot goes up a lot. And while I didn't opt for it in beta, I did choose to drop the points into Sniper Training this time around.
There is some great synergy with these talents as well. The Steady Shot glyph is a must for pretty much any PvE build. But it gets even better when you combine it with Noxious Stings for another 3% damage increase. And given how high your crit chance is going to be along with the extra crit for Explosive Shot, it will power Go for the Throat quite nicely to make sure your pet still has some staying power.
The drawback to this build is that Explosive Shot is already inherently weak and the Steady Shot nerf hurts the build too. The formula for Explosive Shot is [RAP * 0.08 + 238]-[RAP * 0.08 + 286] with the AoE portion doing [(RAP * 0.08 + 238) / 4]-[(RAP * 0.08 + 286) / 4].
With my current stats (which would obviously change with the build, but for numbers sake) Explosive Shot damage would look like this:
546.4 = 3855*0.08+238
594.4 = 3855*0.08+286
We get three total “ticks” from Explosive Shot, so we would be looking at 1639-1783 damage for my Explosive Shot. It costs 7% of our base mana, up from the 5% we spend on Steady Shot. At face value you think to yourself “Hey, that damage is looking pretty good!” But we have to remember that the loss of 20% haste a BM Hunter gets. Serpent’s Swiftness is the reason BM pulls the best DPS. Sure, BW/Readiness is rocking and gets autograph requests and what not, but Serpent’s Swiftness is the real star, slightly pulling way more than its own weight without recognition.
So those are some things I want to try, in conjunction with the normal 11/53/7 stuff, or maybe even an exotic pet. But probably not, unless it ends up being the best DPS spec I can provide to the raid. As it stands, I feel a bit more comfortable testing out specs in the current raid environment until Blizzard puts something in that’s harder. As it stands, I am sure I can still out-DPS some of our terribles with a bad spec and only a mouse. After all what kind of scrubs can’t break 3500 DPS on Patchwerk? (That’s for you Lunchmoneyy!).
Our guild leader, Lunchmoneyy, says the best way to get lots of viewers is to cause drama, call people out, and post bat-s***t insane things. He had just found out a run a blog a few days ago. Not sure who told him. :) So that last comment was for him.
I’ve really wanted to respond to some of the great things you guys have been saying in the Contest post. But I’ve had to refrain because I don’t want to mess up comment numbering. But thanks for some of the awesome words you’ve had for me and the blog. But I’ll save all that for tomorrow’s one-year post.
Nice post. I am curious to see what really goes live.
I’d like a reason to pick up the BM 51 but the pet talent trees are set up in a way where you can get pretty much all the good talents without the 4 extra points, which means the only benefit from the talent is being able to get HotP and LYW in the same build as Rabid and CotW.
A Devilsaur is supposed to be the highest DPS Exotic pet, but the model size bugs it has make it unattractive (like not being able to get out of lava during Sartharion. The next option is Loque’nahak, but good luck taming it when it’s spawn points are along the outer edge of Sholazar Basin where all the mining alts are farming. There’s a hunter on my server that says he kills the spirit beast at least once daily while mining just so other hunters can’t have it.
Blizzard should consider reworking the talent so that all pets gain “Exotic” status while you have it, and make all pets tameable regardless.
I love your site man, I posted some specs on the lodge when you get chance check em out and advise whats best
You know I could be completely off the mark here, but I recently posted a comment in my blog in response to another comment that insinuated that the nerf would kill BM because of the loss in Steady Shot damage. My reply was that it looks like we will have to rethink BM from the ground-up. By which I mean, we’re going to start seeing Arcane Shot (and possibly Aimed Shot?) in BM rotations. Now that the shot clipping is gone, basically the whole reason we were still sticking to Steady spam was because of the mana efficiency (and the massive damage of glyphed Steady). But I think it really is going to come down to mana being the issue here. Do BM hunters have the mana regen to support a more diverse rotation? Hmmm.
Pike’s last blog post..*clears throat*
It’s a good question Pike. So far I have been able to DPS an entire Patchwerk fight as 50/21 without having to switch to Viper, solely relying on external regen to sustain me. Granted I seriously was about to hit bone dry when he died. I know if I had to toss in anything other than the Serpent Sting once every 15 seconds and Steady Shot I would of had to switch Aspects.
@Stridur Will do. I haven’t made my daily rounds over at the Lodge yet. :)
@Lawgnut I agree. With the pet talent trees, I would not get any DPS gain from having 4 more talent points for my pet. /shrug
I don’t know that BM will truly be re-worked from the ground up. SS is still going to be the ‘filler’ shot, unless some of the CDs are removed from the Instant shots. It’s going to be a matter of how it performs after it’s all beaten up.
BM will probably just become SS, AS and Serpent. Tossing AS is in is going to do horrible, horrible things to mana. But, I’m not sure the numbers favor using AS, which means no changes other than less damage. Not exciting, hopefully blizz with do something, since this playstyle isn’t going away. All they can do to it, do to the lack of specialty shots, is crush Steady Shot into nothing, which will affect all specs as well.
Or redo Serpent’s Swiftness, which is kind of the heart of the issue.
But, look on the bright side! If we all have to go MM or Surv, all the haste gear isn’t as bad?
Please enter me in the One-Year Blog Anniversary contest.
@Kolek Just leave a comment on the One-Year post and you’re entered. :)
I can’t see any advantage for the Hunter in being deep BM spec with some of these changes. If the 4 points are needed for the pet then that’s useless. Serpent Swiftness doesn’t give the Hunter a boost anymore so that’s now down to half useful, oh wait… speed nerf to the pet too. I’ll call it 1/3rd of it’s former use. Beast Within/Bestial Wrath are still useful for the moment, but how long will that last if they keep going down this path? Kindred Spirit is getting a double nerf in that I lose some of my ability to kite mobs (and aren’t some of the upper end instances needing Hunters to do that?) and they’ve reduced pet damage. They’ve managed to make the lower third of the tree somewhat unappealing. BM spec (well any spec really) requires you to commit playstyle and resources to it. If the deep parts of the tree aren’t worth using then the spec is going to die. The BM tree is going back to what it was after the last “We Hate BM Hunters” nerf-fest: Minor usage to spend points not used in your “primary” spec.
If they dislike the amount of damage that Steady is doing, why not remove the Glyph? Maybe make the Glyph remove Steady from the GCD? (god I can only dream). Given that BM hunters can easily reduce Steady to below 1.5 why not make it immune to Haste? Force the 2.0 sec cast time to be static? Yes it is a bit mind numbingly boring to cast the same thing over and over again… oh wait… Rogues and Sinister Strike… Fire Mages and Fireball…. Frost Mages and Ice Bolt… Maybe we should just change all the classes so you can’t cast the same spell or use the same ability more than twice in a row.
*grr* Sorry about the ranting… but some of this is just people having a knee-jerk reaction and putting in no thought into what they’re changing or alternatives to ‘nerf’…
Ghostcrawler clarified that the Serpent’s Swiftness for Hunters is not being changed. Only the pet speed is getting adjusted.
I feel your pain though. :(
Still, that’s only a minor “un-nerf”… And I still have to wonder, would removing Steady Shot from the haste table and removing or altering it’s Glyph wouldn’t make them change their minds on that particular change…
Ok.. going back and looking at things again:
reduction of AP bonus to Steady Shot: Translation: to attempt to keep the DPS you had *without* the Glyph before you will need the Glyph now. They’re taking away a Major Glyph slot from anyone who wasn’t already using the Steady Shot Glyph. Again I ask, why not make it a static 2.0 cast time and/or change the Glyph?
Reduction in Volley I can understand, but I’m seeing the issue as being it either effects too many targets (which I don’t see as being “bad”) or the crit rate for is is absurd. Maybe reduce the crit damage (instead of 2.0x on a crit make it 1.5x, allows MM to have a boost to it’s damage via a talent perhaps?).
Readiness.. wow. I played a Rogue at release and could see the nasty things that would happen if I had Prep available to me as a deep Combat/Sword build. I can’t believe they let that one in to start with (and it’s why I didn’t spec 50/21).
Deterrance I’m not going to get into just yet, but it does seem like they want to make it the “Oh S*it” button for when FD fails to get something off of you.
Kill Shot cooldown. Oddly, I’m not completely amused by this. Yes I like the cooldown change, yes it will be of more use (odds are I can get off 2, maybe 3 shots on the ‘average’ boss) but it kinda seems like they intentionally made the CD too long so they could ‘throw us a bone’ when the nerf bat came swinging… Still, an overall plus that I’ll be happy to use.
Kindred Spirits. I have to wonder if the same typo to Serp Swiftness applies here.
Serpent’s Swiftness: I don’t really get the point of this one. Are the pets *really* doing that much damage? I know some hunters have gone inverted (pet DPS > Hunter DPS) but are those folks the exceptions or the rule? Granted given the changes in spell pushback I guess it doesn’t matter how fast the pet munches on something just as long as the DPS is still there…
Pet abilities off GCD… Yay, means I can ‘self-rez’ the Devilsaur while continuing to DPS instead of having to stop shot rotation. Other than that I’m not sure how big a bonus this is as the only tank I have is my Gorilla and I’ve never had to use RoS or Intercept…
Growl increased…. oh joy… Make damn sure I put the Gorilla away for instance runs. ;)
Call of the Wild is now Hunter/Pet only? Are they going to get rid of the Range requirement on it as well? Party effect was the only real reason I picked it up. Stack a couple of Rogues with me and a Shaman… Instant DPS-Blender. Mobs come in one side, loot goes out the other.
Overall it’s not as bad a nerf as it could be, but it’s still pretty painful… and the first item hurts all Hunters but at least deep MM or Survival Hunters have new shots to play with in the mix. BM Hunters are supposed to be “basic”… we spend our talents to make the most of our pets. Nerf the pets a bit if needed, but don’t jack around with the ‘core’ Hunter abilities… it screws everyone and not in a way anyone’s going to like (except maybe the Rogues..)
And according to the PTR notes (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html) they are ‘nerfing’ Kindred Spirits to be just a pet DPS boost, and no longer increases Movement speeds. Oh well.
But now Viper Sting is a bit more useful given that it drains a % of mana, a boost for PVP mana bleeding and PVE boss mana removal… Although I haven’t had much call to use the ability in a while.
“After all what kind of scrubs can’t break 3500 DPS on Patchwerk? (That’s for you Lunchmoneyy!).”
the kind of scrubs that go oom due to death of mana battery.
l2read b4 posting bat-s**t insane things !!
41/30 build is interesting, pts for creativity
I’d have to disagree on the SV build, least for the Sniper Training talent. The talent is very situational and you could put those points to better use. Also with a decent crit rate 5/5 HP isn’t necessary and you could probably push it down to 3/5 which gives you 5 extra points to work with. While I can understand some of the choices, this just my personal preferences from experience.
Hi also from Illidan first time poster. Thought I would throw in my thoughts.
To rebound as nice as I could from the BM/Steady nurfpatch I started thinking like you all “how can I still max my remaining damage”. I came up with this.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Illidan&n=Freecloud
It emphasizes…
-Highest RAP for player centered white damage
-Excellent mana efficiency (with Thrill of the Hunt and the right glyphs (Majors -Trueshot Aura for the +10% Aimed crits, Steady shot and Arcane shot -to improve again mana Eff)
-Best possible stat scaling (RAP off stam, Int and Agi)
-A good AP boost to my pet from Hunter Vs.Wild (missing from most MM builds)
-Lock and load for large damage quick MD pulls
-Double Rapid fire.
What do you all think?
Well, as far as re-working BM goes, I made a couple of posts on the forums about it.
Because of cobra strikes mentioning Kill shot and Arcane shot, I would think that Blizzards wants BM to use some other abilities. Now, the mana regen is the issue, but BM has things going for it. Aspect mastery allows us to go into AotV without as much of a penalty. With cobra strikes maxed, Invigoration should help us regen mana at a decent amount I would think.
I think it’s a good thing! Makes it less boring to do the damage we need to do.
As for the talent ideas, i had a few of those running in my head. With Hunter vs. Wild, Expose Weakness, and Careful aim, no stat goes wasted for AP. Thing is, I’m not a serious math buff… so I don’t know how to do the calculations for all that.
Klinderas’s last blog post..Who IS This Guy?
@Alwayz I agree you actually. There is a solid benefit to Sniper Training. The actual bonus it provides is good but you are absolutely correct when you say it’s situational. It would *never* get put to use on a fight like Malygos (except for maybe the folks on the platforms), and Obsidian Sanctum is a maybe.
I also agree with your HP statement. But I think finding out if you can maintain Replenishment with 3/5 or such first is a good idea. Once you find it is still up constantly, on say a target dummy or something, you know it’s safe to drop the points.
While I’ve never been a fan of Levidia(n)’s delivery, as per usual, he’s spot on with his question. The worry I have here is the multiplicative effects of the various “brakes” blizzard has put on us. Without a stacked raid, I have to viper 2-3 times in a patchwerk fight. If I have to weave expensive instants, that’s going to be more like 5. That’s a *lot* of time in viper for a 4 minute fight. So if instants aren’t buffed, if my pet is doing less damage, if my steady shot is doing less damage, AND if I’m in viper more often, what does that bring me down to? I don’t know, of course, but since it doesn’t look like they’re nerfing deep wounds, and TG in fact got a buff, I’m scratching my head a bit here- have they nerfed hunters only to replace us with warriors (who scale insanely well with weapon upgrades) as the eventual DPS overlords? Why attack hunter scaling while buffing classes that scale better? I’ll be the first to admit 50/21/0 is overpowered, but this methodology worries me.
Long time reader, first time poster. As a end game raiding Marks hunter I was wondering what everyone thought about the changes to Viper sting and how that will affect the use of Chimera Shot.
Upcoming change to our class;
Hunter Changes
Marksmanship
* Viper Sting – Stings the target, draining 16.0% of mana over 8 sec (up to a maximum of 32.0% of the caster’s maximum mana). Only one Sting per Hunter can be active on any one target.
Now read the Marksman 51 Point Talent description;
Chimera Shot Rank 1
16% of base mana 5 – 35 yd range
Instant cast 10 sec cooldown
Requires Ranged Weapon
You deal 125% weapon damage, refreshing the current Sting on your target and triggering an effect:
Serpent Sting – Instantly deals 40% of the damage done by your Serpent Sting.
Viper Sting – Instantly restores mana to you equal to 60% of the total amount drained by your Viper Sting.
Scorpid Sting – Attempts to Disarm the target for 10 sec. This effect cannot occur more than once per 1 minute.
Now put Viper Sting and Chimera Shot together and what do you get? Interesting isn’t it.
I swear I read a blog somewhere were they brooched this topic. I’m just wondering if anyone can confirm that you can basically refill your mana bar by using this combo of shots.
@ Bigvett never really thought of it but think about Boss mana? How much is 60% of the 16% drained of a Bosses mana? Malygos has how much mana? There must be a cap here somewhere or it would be like why even train viper if your going marks?
Well as one of my guild mates pointed out the return would look more like , 32% * .60 = 19.2% of your maximum mana per shot returned.
I actually thought about that last night Bigvett. The limitation on it, being 32% of *your* maximum mana will prevent it from completely filling your mana bar. But if a boss does have have a large enough mana pool where you can get the maximum benefit of Chimera Shot I can see it being a more viable alternative to Aspect of the Viper against a raid boss with mana.
@ Freecloud I went with a very similar build last night but based more on the improved arcane shot than on barrage. It seems to be rather good with a gain in over 400RAP and 1.5ish% crit. Plus better more AP from stamina is only going to do good things with future gear upgrades.
Looks like Blizz is lowering the mana cost on arcane shot. Now we get into interesting scaling issues… Arcane scales better with AP, steady scales with weapon damage. Our future scaling is looking REALLY weird now.
On the other hand, at least I feel a heckuva lot better about my concerns in post #19 above.
Levidia is blunt about his opinions but a lot of the time he is right. At least with the change to Arcane Shot and Explosive Shot they are looking to compensate somewhat. It will be quite a spectacle once we see what makes it live.
I’ve actually only noticed Lock and Load recently as I’ve never tried venturing that deep into Survival. Not triggering the Arcane cooldown gives the shot another reason for MM to use it instead of Aimed (and its accompanying talents and glyphs) to weave into the Steady rotation.
With regards to your 41/30 build, I don’t know if that will compensate the damage lost from Chimera Shot. Chimera itself is useful because you don’t use the actual sting shot to refresh Serpent Sting. In addition, you do raw damage instead of adding percentage points to critical hits. Bigvett also made a good point above in showing that Chimera is useful for other stings as well.
Loronar’s last blog post..For the Alliance!
@Loronar I am sure you’re right. :) I was just getting carried away with the craziness. Heh. I am glad to hear about the buff to Explosive Shot and the readjustment of Arcane Shot though. Opens up more windows.
Blue post from MMO Champion today:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=30418.0
Hunter (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Is there anything planned to switch pets when dual-spec is released?
Yup. I think you’ll like it though. (Source)
New Deterrence
Preventing ranged attacks during Deterence but allowing melee attacks is also something we’ve discussed. (Source)
Upcoming hunter changes (Source)
One of the concerns with nerfing Steady Shot was hurting the dps potential for Survival hunters. One of the opportunities with the nerf was to make other shots more attractive so that hunter dps wouldn’t be so much about auto + steady.
Here are two changes we are going to try on the PTR.
* Arcane Shot — mana cost lowered to the cost of Steady Shot.
* Explosive Shot — damage increased substantially (e.g. from 260 to 520 base at rank 4), and additional scaling added to compensate. No longer deals AE damage to other targets.
Adding the AE component back might make a decent glyph or something, but really we felt like hunters had options for AE and what we really needed to do was give Survival a button that really did some major damage.
So yesterday I messed around with specs…now that I have my new Naxx gear :)
With my MM spec I was averaging over 2k dps in raid. Out of raid it was about 1700-1900.
I tried out your BM spec. Out of raid it was around 1200-1600, in a 5 man instance it did go up to around 2k…but my meters and other ppl’s meters differed for some reason. And in instances such as Old Strat I didn’t do very good at all mostly cause its an aoe instance and I have a single-target pet burst dps situation….
I then tried out your 5/15/51 – Hawked Survival spec. I know the changes haven’t gone thru with explosive shot, but I was curious. And although I had a LOT of crits flashing in front of me, my dps stayed down at 1200-1400.
Needless to say I went back to my MM spec before I logged…a little dejected. I was hoping to find a spec that finally was getting my consistently above 2k dps.
I’m still not getting anywhere near the 3k dps you have posted for Naxx….and with my new gear and everything I thought I would be. Any suggestions?