New DPS number are in from wowhead!

Classes Hunter
42

It comes with free carpal tunnel too!!

43

Finally. Someone reasonable.

44

For real? Really?

I just want you to look at this:

https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/beast-mastery-hunter-pve-dps-rotation-cooldowns-abilities

And then look at this:

https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/shadow-priest-pve-dps-rotation-cooldowns-abilities

45

All that shows me is that whoever wrote the BM article condensed all the information into;

  1. Do this.
  2. Do that.
  3. Do this other thing.
  4. Finally this.
  5. Repeat.

While the SP writer made a huge long list including the same abilities multiple times. It’s bloated with a lot “if this happens, do this”, which also applies to BM. The BM writer just didn’t include all of that.

Also, the SP writer included separate rotation information for different talents. The BM writer just assumed you’d talent the way they told you to and doesn’t include any information about other talents that might need to be weaved into a rotation. They don’t even mention Chimaera Shot, A Murder of Crows, Barrage, Stampede or Bloodshed, which some Hunters might use in certain situations.

2 Likes
46

For one, the BM rotation page has a ton of checkboxes at the top to hide superfluous talents and abilities. The Shadow Priest rotation guide is just a mess of organization because everything is in there and you have to figure what applies or not, which in turn makes it look more complicated than it should. It also contains a lot of very specific conditions that a lot of people won’t even really care about. Look at the rotation on the easy mode page without all that fluff and it doesn’t look nearly as scary.

For two, it’s already widely accepted that Shadow Priest is the hardest spec to play at a high level. It is the exception, not the norm. Using it as the comparison point is misleading.

4 Likes
47

I didn’t even notice that when I perused the page. Thanks for pointing it out.

48

Some icy veins articles have a tendency to over-engineer the rotation. And there’s a difference between difficult and clunky.
Also Cog made a good point. The Spriest article throws everything into one long list, whereas the BM article is split up depending on situation, trinkets, etc.
Click on spriest easy mode. DoT em up, mind blast, devouring plague, voidform, voidbolt, mindblast

There really aren’t any truly difficult specs. BM just has a lower ceiling. Being ripped on for being a 2 button class (in PvE we are actually a four button class tyvm!) is odd because there’s no class mashing a hundred buttons. Most hover around the 4-6 range depending on situation and cooldown. MM for example, while more finicky, is essentially a four-button spec as well since multi-shot and arcane shot are rotational cousins.

49

Did you even read it? The writer of the Spriest guide assumes you use the optimal talents and has two out of 19 base lines as “if talented, blablabla.” The writer of the Spriest guide changes, adds, and removes points based on your covenant as well.

Beast Mastery, everyone is running the same talents (210201X) for AOE and ST except maybe the last one. Yes, the BM writer gives you the breakdown if you choose the wrong talents, but the default + covenant ability is what you see and what you get. If the shadow page did this, it would be even longer and they’d have to rewrite many bullet points for each section, which is probably why the writer chose not to do that. Notice that Shadow stratifies into four rotational groups. BM has two, and they’re almost the same except you cast multi-shot into kill command.

Some specs are significantly harder to play well than others, and to say that every spec is easy on the easiest spec in the game is like saying that all of m+ is easy after only doing 10s

I did and it’s even more complex than BM’s extended rotation. And it’s still not optimal. Someone following this flowchart exactly would only parse 90 at most.

50

I play SP as well and I don’t think SP is any more difficult than BM. The rotation is similar and changes about as often depending on content. I would put them on par with each other. That is entirely subjective though. If you look around at different forums, it seems everyone just wants to think the spec they play is the hardest. What you find difficult is likely going to be different than what I find difficult.

Personally, I have every class at max level and have played most specs. I think the only specs I haven’t played are healer specs - simply because it doesn’t rock my boat. Of those specs, I think the one I had the hardest time with was Sub Rogue. It just didn’t seem intuitive to me.

Do I think BM is difficult? Absolutely not. But I also don’t think it’s as simple and easy as the memes insist.

That being said, that article is absolutely bloated. They list the same ability multiple times, which makes it look like SP rotation has a dozen buttons to push. The one thing I will give to Shadow, however, is that carrying Tomes around is almost necessary. The way the talents are set up, you need to swap talents every time you transition between trash and bosses if you want to not suck on either of them.

2 Likes
51

There is difficult, then there is clunky, then there’s floors and ceilings. BM, Havoc DH, Fury Warr, a few others have low floors. That is, you don’t need to have a huge amount of skill to reach a decent parse. Fury warrior and BM have low ceilings as well. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to achieve the maximum output for your spec/gear. The consequence for BM is that you don’t do much damage and it ends up not being a skill issue. It’s kinda hard to mess up the rotation I’ll admit. Fury doesn’t suffer this consequence as much. I’d categorize Spriest as a middle floor, high ceiling spec.

But easy vs. difficult isn’t one size fits all. I think the highest skill cap ranged specs are easier than fury warrior, what I’d consider the easiest melee spec along with HDH, because I just never got into melee. You become accustomed to certain rotation styles.

If I woke up to 10.0 making BM the hardest, highest skill cap spec in the game I’d still play it provided it was viable.

4 Likes
52

Talk about your all time bad takes. No bias here folks, move along!

3 Likes
53

The first paragraph is exactly what I’m saying! To say that all specs are easy to play well is just silly. Honestly, I’d say that all specs are hard to play well, and some specs are even harder to play well. Yes, with Shadow, the clunk is real. I disagree with the second part but I acknowledge that melee experience their own set of challenges. Same boat about playing my favorite spec regardless of how hard they are, I’ll make it work.

1 Like
54

Update, now BM is dead last
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/29#metric=dps&dataset=95&class=DPS

55

WE’RE #1!!
WE’RE #1!!
WE’RE #1!!

woo hoo! its like golf scores right? lower is better?

2 Likes
56

Blizzard has done a good job over the years of shifting the difficulty of the game from the class/spec to the content. When we say every spec is easy, we’re comparing them to other games. Essentially, if you know how to key bind and take the time to learn a spec, playing any of them is not particularly challenging. Min/Maxing them is another story.

The difficulty comes from the content. Sometimes the content makes a spec harder to play effectively. Other times easier. Blizzard changed the game when they developed mechanics that target specific roles, rather than randomly selected players. The problem is people tend to focus on the fights they have trouble with and fail to notice the fights other specs have trouble with.

Everyone talking about how hard it is to be melee are a prime example. They experience the melee mechanics that ranged don’t have to deal with and see it as unfair. But they fail to appreciate the ranged mechanics they don’t have to deal with.

My issue with all the BM hate is the lack of understanding balance. Saying BM has ultimate mobility isn’t much of a niche if they can’t provide the damage to make it worthwhile. Claiming BM has 100% uptime all the time is a fundamental misunderstanding of how the spec works. Any mechanic that interrupts Frenzy stacks is a massive blow to BM DPS. BM brings no group buffs, no high burst damage, no damage mitigation other than a three min turtle cooldown
 So without higher DPS, what is the point of bringing BM Hunters to progression raids?

4 Likes
57

So as i see it, your argument goes something like this"BM is easy so it should do lower dps; mine is more difficult so i should be rewarded with higher dps" This argumentis a fallacy though because it attempts to coorelate player capability to player output while ignoring the fact that the game design plays heavily into the equation. Let me very clear on this: the base roation for all specs of all classes is roughly equivilant and has been for a considerable amout of time. The only “complexity” comes from talent choices, which in higher end content, is determined by throughput. In the case of BM hunter, our throughput currently dictates passive talent choices, while Shadow priest numbers dictate three active talent choices. This is what makes your spec appear to be more difficult than BM hunter, but it is a function of game design and poor talent optimization and not inherent to the class being easier to play. So to reframe your argument correctly, it would have to be along the lines of: you currentlly are being punished with a crappy talent tree from the developers of the game and because of that you deserve to be punished further by limiting your dps output to a level 15% below me." Doesn’t seem quite fair does it especially considering a fair number of really good performing specs out there have either all passive trees or one additional active talent as well ( SV hunter, Mm hunter, Frost dk, Havoc dh, etc)

5 Likes
58

This is what BM mains tell themselves to try and feel better about their choices.

59

And therein lies the problems with the Spec’s design. As 9.0-9.1.5 BM you had no choice with interactive Talent’s unless you wanted to purposefully neuter your DPS and survivability.

Our 2 pce gave us 1 extra viable non passive Talent allowing the use of Killer Cobra at the expense of the extra pet Damage from RPF during Bestial Wrath. This also reduces the survivability of this spec via loosing the minor Predators Thirst buff to Leach provided by AotB Not so good as it only counts with the % of Damage the Hunter does not the pets. As if we aren’t squishy enough already we have to give up a tad more self healing to gain DPS.

The 4 pce doesn’t offer anything viable as on optional change, Extremely doubtful I will deviate from prioritizing an empowered Cobra Shot over using a Multi Shot to add the extra 6 seconds to Beast Cleave on anything but trash clearing.
Especially as the Multi Shot will NOT reset the Kill Command cooldown during Wrath windows.
The 40% to pets Kill Command was good when it was working at the bugged 100% mark and would have placed us mid pack for single Target.

Going to take me a little while to overcome my muscle memory want/need to fire of 2 Cobra Shot’s after each Kill Command whilst distracted by mechanics.

60

I’ve touched on this in another thread. It is my opinion that active talents should be more powerful than passive talents. Anything that increases the complexity of a spec should be rewarded with slightly higher damage. For example


Row 15 - Dire Beast.

“Summons a powerful wild beast that attacks the target and roars, increasing your Haste by 5% for 8 sec.”

  • Gives 5% haste for 8 seconds every 20 seconds, which is very low.
  • The “powerful wild beast” hits like a wet noodle.
  • Costs a GCD every 20 seconds, which could be used for a more powerful ability.
  • Simming this talent with my own toon results in about a 480 DPS loss compared to Animal Companion in the same row.

Row 25 - Chimaera Shot

“A two-headed shot that hits your primary target and another nearby target, dealing XXXX Nature damage to one and XXXX Frost damage to the other.”

  • Doesn’t do enough damage for a 12 sec cooldown. Using that GCD for a Multi-Shot triggered Beast Cleave on two targets would do more damage than Chimaera Shot.
  • Giving up Scent of Blood or One with the Pack makes it much harder to manage Frenzy stacks, which are now more important than ever with tier set bonuses.
  • Simming this talent with my own toon results in about a 440 DPS loss compared to Scent of Blood in the same row.

Row 35 - A Murder of Crows

“Summons a flock of crows to attack your target, dealing XX,XXX Physical damage over 15 sec. If the target dies while under attack, A Murder of Crows’ cooldown is reset.”

  • Has it’s uses in fights with a burst window, where the target takes extra damage. However, being Physical damage means it’s reduced significantly by armor.
  • 9% crit from Thrill of the Hunt is far more consistent.
  • Simming this talent with my own toon results in about a 515 DPS loss compared to Thrill of the Hunt in the same row.

Row 45 - Barrage or Stampede

“Rapidly fires a spray of shots for 3 sec, dealing an average of [(14.196% of Attack power)% * 11] Physical damage to all nearby enemies in front of you. Usable while moving. Deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.”

  • Barrage is terrible. Not only does it have a habit of pulling extra mobs, the damage it does is terrible.
  • In Single Target and AoE/Cleave fights, Stomp does more damage and it’s passive.
  • Simming this talent with my own toon results in about a 780 DPS loss compared to Stomp in the same row.

“Summon a herd of stampeding animals from the wilds around you that deal damage to your enemies for 12 sec.”

  • Looks cool, but the damage is atrocious.
  • Simming this talent with my own toon results in about a 665 DPS loss compared to Stomp in the same row.

Row 50 - Bloodshed
“Command your pet to tear into your target, causing your target to bleed for [Attack power * 0.25 * 6 * 1 * (1 + Versatility) * 1] over 18 sec and increase all damage taken from your pet by 15% for 18 sec.”

  • The damage component suffers a 35% penalty if talented into Animal Companion, which pretty much every BM Hunter is due to it’s strength in that row.
  • Without set bonuses, passive Aspect of the Beast(passive) does more damage.
  • With any set bonuses, Killer Cobra(passive) does more damage in single target, while Aspect of the Beast(passive) does more damage in AoE/Cleave.

If they made all of the active talents better, BM would be more complex to play for min/max players. Instead, we get buggy or poorly thought out talents that pigeonhole the majority of BM hunters into the same build.

The trolls always insist we want to be top damage. What we want is for the problems with the spec to be addressed. Instead, they ignore all of the problems and just do patchwork aura buffs that don’t fix anything.

8 Likes
61

I agree that it would be nice to be able to add more complexity through talents, and sometimes the options do exist but are simply not competitive enough or riddled with bugs as you have highlighted.

However, you seem to have a very binary perception of active = extra button and everything else is passive. But there are passive talents that can make gameplay more complex just like there are actives that don’t.

Take Spitting Cobra for example, where the goal it is to make you optimise your Bestial Wrath window differently. Or Steady Focus where you’ll alter your rotation slightly to maintain the buff. Or Wildfire Infusion that dictates your actions after throwing a bomb. Would you really put them in the same category as Animal Companion or Master Marksman? And I’d certainly argue those involve more than pressing Chimaera Shot or Flanking Strike every time the cooldown comes up.