While I’d love to see Dark Ranger get some buffs so it’s actually viable, I’m really satisfied with Pack Leader BM atm. Even with just the 2 set from Undermine and a solid amount of Critical (by the time you have 2-3 pieces of Champion S2 gear you should have around 34-ish percent) and BM can hit for a whopping 10.5m DPS on burst in keys.
For everyone saying BM is bad, think about it like this. 2 set of Undermine tier guarantees a Jackpot proc every time you cast Bestial Wrath. That Jackpot proc guarantees a cast of Barbed Shot at full effectiveness which in turn lowers your cooldown of Bestial wrath by 12s. So that’s already 12s off of an almost 2m CD. On top of that, Barbed Shot triggers your pets to Stomp, so you get even more AOE damage while helping you stack [Thrill of the Hunt], activate your [Poison barbs] and proc [War Orders] more often. Pair all of that with your 2 set from Nerub’Ar Palace and your pet’s increased attack speed is actually pretty lethal in AOE situations. This is just my thoughts though, would love to hear my fellow Hunters thoughts.
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Yes bm is good.
It’s not crazy op atm and prob still not the top3 dps spec for keys, but def solid.
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I wouldn’t go so far as to say BM is crazy. I’d put it at good. Not OP and not weak. Rankings are a weird metric to use, but even they show BM right in the middle, which I think is a good place to be.
That being said, BM still has some issues I’d like to see addressed.
- The new defensive talent in Pack Leader is terrible. The shift from what we had before to what we have now is painful.
- The gap between ST and AoE builds is still massive. In raids, this isn’t a problem, but I expect BM to struggle a bit in M+ as the season progresses.
- Howl of the Pack Leader summons pets that need work. Wyvern appears and blocks my view every single time. Annoying! Boar often spawns over the edge of a platform and gets stuck, doing no damage that rush. Bear either pulls agro like mad or gets hit by AoE, and then dies quickly.
- Tier set often doesn’t proc a Jackpot on the first Bestial Wrath cast. This seems to have gotten better over the last few days, but still happens to me about 20% of the time.
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Bm is in a good spot, not a shaman or fire mage spot… but a good spot
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Would’ve been nice to keep the new tier set pre-nerfed 
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I just wish they would fix the 2set bonus in pvp. As it stands now it’s a pretty substantial DPS loss to take it.
Set bonuses are nerfed 50% in PvP, so now with the barbed shot proc being nerfed from 200%-100%, you are constantly overwriting your 100% barbed shots with 50% ones, which for obvious reasons, isnt great
is it me or pets dieing faster vs rares
Depends the player’s talent tree. If you do not have the damage reduction from misdirection (No hard feelings) or the improved pet healing (wilderness medecine), the pet will require more attention while tanking.
I’m not using ranking. My take is strictly based off my own experience. 10.5m During a Mythic+ on burst is so much fun. Since posting this I’ve gotten higher up to 15.5m
The tier set is really fun and makes maintaining the frenzy buff much more easier. I mean yes you have to get in the habit of knowing Bestial Wrath will give you a free Barbed Shot but other than that, it’s super easy.
One thing I noticed between PL and DR is that with PL, focus can be a bit ‘dry’ at times which stalls the rotation for a second or two and PL is very cd dependent whereas DR is not focus reliant and a bit less so with their cd as well.
that change was made for tww due to delves. to put bm a little more in line with other classes for solo play. res pet is just a part of the rotation now, unless you pull a little more methodical and have your pet kite as well during huge pulls etc.
PL is not cd dependent at all, you dont even run Call of the Wild in keys. And bm does plenty of damage outside cds in raid. And focus is a non issue for PL this season if you play correctly, you just spend too much focus pressing cobra shot and kill shot way too much, kill shot should be zero.
I totally run Call of the Wild in keys. It’s how I get most of my DPS on starting burst. Especially when you have a Priest in the key a properly setup BM Hunter can hit upwards of 10-15.5m DPS. That and Call makes it so you don’t have to cast multi-shot as often.
Without a dedicated PI though, which I’d argue is the average PuG experience, the dire beast build is higher overall damage
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BM does plenty of burst in non call builds on anything except the first pull of the instance.
I recently came back and picked up a hunter. I’m pretty happy with everything so far though I’m not much of a key pusher now a days. My only complaint which is mega stupid is I wish Solitary Companion was closer to Animal Companion. I kind of like the bigger single pet but that’s almost purely for cosmetics.
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That’s it’s purpose, it’s an rp talent. It will never be competitive especially with double pets means double the procs
10m is nice, I’ve seen my burst get around 17m in Cinderbrew. Not sustain but when things rocket early in an encounter.
I hit 18.8 in that first room… i was like holy crap
hi all,
i checked your talents build and i saw you all (almost all at least) use the Aoe/M+ that wowhead suggest…that seems pretty strong but how is your dps in ST situation?
I am trying to blend a bit ST talents with AoE talents but not sure if could be the right choice.
Thank you for your suggestions