Am i the only one who finds their play style so boring? I see people always complaining about survival but I enjoy that one way better. Maybe it’s just because I love DoTs but i feel the rotation is unsatisfying on BM. I really want to use Exotics but I can’t get myself to stay BM. I even enjoy MM more than BM.
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At the moment, at least in the area of PvE, it really comes down to preference in most cases. Personally I don’t like BM because it just feels weird to have the passive attacks from an AI be the one of my highest sources of damage (even though that’s mostly supplemented by the haste granted from barbed shot to the pet).
And I just stink at the wonky whack-a-mole that is survival. I never can feel like I’m using the right ability at the right time, even when I set up a stupid flowchart in front of me as the ability cooldowns seem to trip over themselves.
Honestly, at least in PvE, you’re best served playing whatever you have the most fun with because the more you enjoy the playstyle, the more second nature it becomes and it lets you just focus on boss mechanics.
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I agree the BM is more boring when compare to the other hunter spec, but the play style enjoyment does not matter much when it come to most people that are doing high end content such as mythic plus, raid and pvp.
For me who currently trying to do mythic raid bosses I will play any hunter spec that will give me the best overall dps output; I don’t care if it Surv, BM or MM.
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I’d, to a small degree, beg to differ. I see where you come from if you approach it from a utilitarian mindset, but truthfully, after finally getting some mythic raiding under my belt, I can say that unless your spec is one of those dead last by a considerable margin from the middle of the pack (looking at you arcane mages and destro locks), it’s truly fine to play whatever you want so long as you can perform with it and are enjoying it.
In PvP, I’ll concede as being a bit more unforgiving with regard to spec choice, however…
I wouldn’t actually agree with this. For a few reasons really…
It is Beast Mastery after all. It does make sense for the bulk of the damage to come from either your main pet or other pet-related attacks.
Like you said, the fact that your pet’s auto attacks deal so much dmg overall, is because of what you do yourself. You have to keep the Frenzy-stacks up as much as possible, or pet auto-attack damage won’t be anywhere near the top.
While technically, it’s a bit different here as your pet is actually a moving entity. But on the other hand, take any ability that deals periodic damage. You press a button once, and damage is dealt over time no matter what you do next.
Maybe, what you have is an ability that lets you build up the damage it deals by using it again whenever possible.
It’s kind of the same thing with hunter pets and Barbed Shot. They are like mobile DoTs you can control, to a degree.
The only way to avoid this, is to use/have abilities that deal instant damage, and that comes in the form of ranged shots via your gun/bow/xbow etc.
But this wouldn’t actually be Beast Mastery then, would it?
I agree that it could use quite a few improvements. Have previously posted my suggestions on the matter.
Personally though, despite the fact that I don’t think the spec is anywhere near perfect. It IS still the hunter spec that I enjoy the most.
MM is waaay to stale in it’s current state for me. Also, I’ve never been a big fan of having several abilities with a cast time or channeling time. Also, I like pets.
Survival in it’s current state…it’s a melee spec so, it’s a big NO for me.
I like a playstyle that involves DoTs as well.
In fact, one of my favorite specs of all times was when Hunters had the old ranged SV spec that included for example: Explosive Shot, Black Arrow and Serpent Sting(and more).
Which is also why I’m a big advocate for coming up with ways on how it can come back(see link below):
True, for many, it doesn’t matter as much as performance does.
But an important note is that in most cases, it doesn’t actually matter what spec you play. As long as you’re not in it to play on a competitive level or for example in M+, aim for the top of the top key levels.
And like @Yjjial said, if you have a spec that you know to the T compared to if you choose a spec that has the potential to perform better but you might not know what to do when playing it, the outcome might very well turn out on the negative side.
Oh I agree. And at no point did I say that the pet, the BEAST of the beast master shouldn’t be the main source of damage.
I just don’t, on a mechanical and game feel level, enjoy the experience being functionally tied to an NPC. Especially when two of the top 3 sources of damage are pet-auto attack and pet auto-casted basic ability.
I do agree with your points though. I guess, if I’m going to get to the core of it, I think it’s the degrees of separation that make it not feel like my character is actually responsible for the damage.
I think kill command is an example of a good way for it to still feel like I’m the one in control of how the damage is dealt. Another good mechanic I liked was how frenzy worked in MoP. It felt like the pet fueled you and then you fueled your pet.
It’s personaly preference. If you find it boring there’s nothing we can do to help. I would recommend not to play a spec that bores you.
I find it totally fine with BM rotation, but that’s mostly because I’m a raider. I spend most of my time looking at boss mechanics, not my action bars.
And even if the rotation is easy, you can still screw it up pretty badly if you don’t know what you’re doing. High dps doesn’t happen by itself.
I’m partially worried about this being posted on a lvl 21 character, which doesn’t even have any abilities to press. So claiming that a spec is boring before it gets any abilities seems a bit odd. Maybe BM is extra boring at low levels.
Fair enough. But I wouldn’t actually ever recommend for you to play BM when you feel like that.
Honestly, I would prefer if only BM was the spec that had a baseline dependency on pets. MM should be able to have a pet out but should in no real way promote the use of pets.
SV, could potentially have ways to rely more on pets as well, though IMO, they should be entirely optional. Not baseline.
Never said that you did^^
I only stated what I think makes sense for BM.
They are indeed.
Though still:
For pet auto-attacks to be as high as they are, you have to do well on using Barbed Shot for Frenzy-stacks.
The pet auto-cast ability(Basic Attacks: Bite, Claw or Smack) does deal a fair amount of damage. But the only way for those to be as high as the top, is for you to run with the talent: Aspect of the Beast.
And also, while probably not intended, in order to get the most out of pet Basic Attacks, you have to macro them into your main abilities due to the delay in the pet AI(it usually takes up to around 0.5 seconds for the pet to automatically cast a Basic Attack after it has come off CD).
True.
And like I’ve said before, the spec’s design can certainly be improved upon!
Agreed.
Looking at/dealing with them.
True.
As an example:
How you respond to good RNG vs bad RNG matters for a whole lot when it comes to BM. Deal with it the wrong way, and you may not get much extra out of the spec anyway.
He/she posted from a WoW:Classic toon.
Most likely, since he/she is talking about BfA, there’s a higher leveled character out there somewhere.
Thats my classic hunter, I have a 120 hunter that i faction changed to horde and I’m currently leveling a surv hunter on alliance again thats at 80 at the moment.
Also let me clarify, hunter is my main. It is always the character I put the most hours on.
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Unfortunately, since I’m completely incapable at PvP as a Melee and folks refuse to do arenas with me as MM, I’m pigeonholed into babysit the beastie spec if I ever feel like doing organized PvP.
I agree. I still feel like MM could benefit from getting just a bit more utility when going lone wolf. I mean, yeah. I get it. I’m playing a hunter so pets are part of the picture, but I really just want my character to be a rifleman and oftentimes the pet pathing is just mindbogglingly bad. If Lone Wolf got all 3 pet passives with everything else as-is, I don’t really see that as a problem. You get a pocket tank with a buff and and active ability, or you dedicate yourself to being a self-sufficient “lone wolf” agent.
And this wouldn’t even phase out a pet for MM completely. You can’t use roar of sacrifice (one of our strongest PvP defensives IMHO) without one, let alone master’s call. You don’t get pet debuffs like MS (though I feel like it could be baked into aimed shot, just like it was once before).
Just give me a little more staying power as the rifleman I want to be. It wouldn’t even really imbalance DPS either.
Also, ironically, the casting (though I wish I could cast Aimed Shot while moving, even if it was a PvP talent), is actually one of my favorite parts of MM. It has, for me at least, a sort of waltzlike rhythm once you get into the flow state of it.
#ReturnRangedSurvival(4thspec)
Couldn’t agree more.
That is an alluring fantasy indeed.
Riflemen from WC3 was what first pushed me towards Hunter in WoW. And like for many others, once that Dwarf Hunter outside of Ironforge first appeared in the Vanilla cinematic…I was sold. That’s also what made me like the idea of pets even more.
You mean the spec passives? Leech + Health + Movement Speed.
Agreed.
It makes sense both mechanically as well as fantasy-wise if you when a “Lone Wolf” being more resistant to CC/roots/slows etc. And, to maybe have access to some more active perks in terms of utility and defensives.
For example, a reduced CD on Aspect of the Cheetah. And on use, it would remove roots/snares/slows and similar effects. Not hard CC though.
(Just to mention something)
IMO, this should just become a baseline ability once again. If you have a pet then you should be able to use this, no matter what pet that is.
Hmm.
well, I posted this in a thread the other day:
You could make it so each shot fired during Rapid Fire, would lower the cast time of your next Aimed Shot by 0.2 seconds. Total shots = 10 = 2.0 seconds cast time removed.
If the channel is completed in full, this would remove 2.0 seconds from your next Aimed Shot. Which would give you sort of a on-demand mechanic for both a change of pace in your main ability along with the upside of not as often having to go through the full cast time on AS.
The talent Streamline if picked, would add the benefit of Rapid Fire-uses always causing your next Aimed Shot to be an instant cast.
On top of the additions to Rapid Fire itself that the talent gives.If you were to pick the talent Double Tap, this could have been changed so that if Rapid Fire is channeled in full, and if combined with the Streamline-talent, it would then cause the next 2 Aimed Shots, to be instant casts, instead of just one.
If you haven’t picked Streamline, then using Double Tap on Rapid Fire would cause the following 2 Aimed Shots to have their cast time lowered by 2.0 seconds.And, to cover the damage loss of the missing Rapid Fire-shots along with the lost focus component, you could also add in a mechanic to the talent that makes Rapid Fire, if fully channeled, cause your next AS(or two), to ignore some of the targets armor.
Is the above suggestions good? Feel free to get back to me on that^^
It might not be exactly what you want, but it would certainly fix some issues(and add in a feeling of…change of pace).
Sorry for the late reply. I’m digging this, really. Just kinda fell of the map a few days.
Honestly, if I were given the chance to improve the lone wolf active CD, I think the active should be a mix of master’s call (but only for the hunter) AND Survival of the fittest (on only a 1 min CD) because I cannot fathom that being imbalanced to be a bit slippery when alone for a few seconds every minute. It might frustrate melee, but I have to run petless to do so.
We end up forgoing all of the pet family abilities too. No purge nor an MS (though it should be baked into Aimed Shot, even as a PvP talent).
Actually, I think I might put a spin on this idea of revisiting a talent to improve aimed shot.
Here’s my rework.
Lethal Shots - Consuming charges of precise shots lowers the cast time of aimed shot cast within the next 10 seconds by .35 sec per charge consumed, up to .70 sec (Not guaranteeing instant because LnL needs to have its niche and part of the spec should still involve cast time) in addition to it’s current (underwhelming but potentially niche for PvP) effect. This would A) Help with precise shots clipping by getting aimed shots out of the way sooner B) Open up potentially other abilities with the freed globals for maybe playing with Piercing or Explosive Shot.
(Also, depending on the math, as this is all spitball at this point, it could even have it set up that Trueshot windows could have occasional instant aimed shots if two precise shots charges were used, and if not, a very, very fast cast from one charge.)
Also Serpent Sting, while charming to see again, should have been completely replaced with something else. Not sure what, but a cheap focus-spending ability that actually can do damage would have been nice.