Hey all,
I respeccd to BM after 120, and got into a bad habit of not using multishot, as I associated it with a drop in overall dps. Now, I understand how important maintaining cleave is, but my experience is the same. Basically, whenever I use multishot my dps drops off, significantly (~10k). Being new to the game, I can’t help but wonder if I’m missing something critical/obvious (like needing a specific type of pet, etc).
Happy to provide more detail if required. I know it’s a bit vague, but would appreciate any and all comments.
Thanks
Do you have the rapid reload Azerite trait?
Your best bet would be to check out the wowhead or icy-veins guide… the rotation section… they give a pretty detailed explanation on when/how often to use multi-shot. A lot of factors go into it… such as ilvl, number of mobs, and whether or not you’re running the Rapid Reload trait.
Edited to add… I don’t see mythic runs on your sheet, so I’m assume you’re doing heroics (or M0’s)… So try this: On your chest, swap DoD for Rapid Reload. On your helm, swap HoD for Primal Instincts. Swap both Gutrippers out on your gear. You’ll lose one DoD, but gain RR and a second PI. Give that a try and see how your cleave improves. If you’re just interested in raiding, ignore this edited section 
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When you multi shot your pet cleaves, so you want a macro for multi shot with pet attack so that you can optimize where your pet is positioned. If you have a pack of 5 mobs, 4 are clumped and the 5th a bit out your pets cleave would not hit all if it was sicked on that 5th add. You wanna target what’s roughly in the center of a pack and multi shot that with pet attack so your pets cleave hits most mobs.
Big part of BM is pet management. I’ve always kept my pets leashed; meaning they are always on passive, they attack only what I send them to. I have pet attack macrod with kill command and multi shot. Pet attack tells your pet to move and start attacking which is why I don’t add pet attack to cobra shot as I like being able to toss a cobra shot or two to a low health add that would die before the pet would run over, that way the pet can sit on the primary target and no dps was lost in the pet needlessly running over to the add and back.
#showtooltip Kill Command
/petattack
/cast Kill Command
#showtooltip Multi-Shot
/petattack
/cast Multi-Shot
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Thanks a lot for responses all. I knew about the rr az trait, but underestimated it’s significance in this respect. Also, I didn’t understand how important macros are in relation to effectively managing pet attacks. So, I’ve definitely identified some areas to look into further. Thanks again
How many targets are you hitting? Cleaving properly on 2 targets is actually not that easy. Kill Command still does more damage than cleaving if it’s only 2 targets. You don’t want to multishot so much that you run out of focus and are then unable to use Kill Command on cooldown.
Don’t use Cobra Shot if you’re cleaving or you will definitely run out of focus to use on Kill Command. You can only mainatain Multi-Shot + Cobra Shot + Kill Command if Aspect of the Wild is up.
I’m assuming that’s what you’re talking about because it’s impossible for your dps to drop when you hit multishot against 5 or more targets. So my guess is that you’re mismanaging focus against 2 targets.
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Thanks, I think you’re right about using multishot too much and not managing focus. I’ll have to pay more attention to that.
Have /petattack macro’d to as many things as possible. I try and pick a target in the middle of the pack as well. I open with Barbed Shot, hit Bestial Wrath, Multi-shot until I run out of focus, Barbed Shot, then Chimera Shot to regen some focus, then Multi-Shot. Since you have Stomp, do Barbed shot when you can’t Multi-shot. It is also good to have at least 1 Rapid Reload Azerite trait as well.
Of course, my build doesn’t go along with standard conventions, but I’ve found it the most useful as I have my Ferocity pet tank things a lot and Leech via Kill Command and Beast Cleave is how it stays alive better than any Tenacity pet. The bad thing is only the base 15% Leech applies to the pet and any other Leech you get doesn’t.
If you’re just macroing petattack all over to everything, you might as well just keep your pet on assist.
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There’s apparently something something with pet attacks being delayed so a lot of people macro the pet’s basic attack into their abilities.
/petattack is useless though, if you’re using the macro with the basic attack in it, your pet will switch targets anyway.
It’s because the autocast function has an internal cooldown. It doesn’t try to cast basic attack every millisecond. So the pet basic attack won’t be cast immediately after it comes off cooldown. On average I think you lose like about half a second per cast, and since it’s a 3 second cooldown, half a second loss is not insignificant.
This didn’t use to be an issue, because basic attacks spend twice as much focus to do double damage when pet focus is above 50. Which normally would solve the dps loss from the delay. But in BfA pet focus regen is so high they’re always capped which is why the slow autocast became an issue again. It’s really dumb.
I’m watching my pet on a target dummy right now and I’m not seeing any delay with basic attack or melee.
The fact that the pet never drops below 50 focus doesn’t seem to cause any delay in casting.
I don’t know what to tell you. The delay is definitely there. It’s only on basic attacks, nothing else. Basic attack comes off cooldown and it doesn’t cast immediately.
You might want to compare how fast it casts when not doing anything compared to spamming the /cast Claw(Basic Attack) macro. It’s more noticeable by comparison than just watching the autocast alone.
Also the focus doesn’t cause the issue, it’s a solution that prevents the delay from lowering your dps, but it only works if the pet isn’t focus capped all the time.
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