And Today BM dies a bit more 66.4
Is Blizzard looking at some different data? Or maybe they think all the good players switched to MM so low performance is just from bad play? The surprise is the less than 5% buff - usually they like to round to a nice number like 5. In this case, 3 seems like a joke, given that a flat buff of 10% is more appropriate (assuming they just want to give a flat buff to make it easy for themselves). What are they afraid will happen if they give more than 3%?
3 Likes
I think what we have is a self fulfilling prophecy.
Despite what some would insist, the ‘meta’ matters to high end raiders and mythic plus runners. BM is at the bottom, so they don’t want to handicap their groups, regardless of how good that particular hunter is.
Then what happens is the majority of those geared BM Hunters are stuck running normal raids and low keys, where they top the meters by a large margin. Other players run to the forums where they scream about how overpowered BM is, because a Hunter with 15 item levels on them outdamaged them in a raid. Blizzard looks at this and thinks buffing BM more will exacerbate the problem. In reality, a more appropriate buff would allow those BM Hunters to move on to more difficult content.
6 Likes
The problem here is you, and others like you, are playing BM, and not MSV.
Some gentle pressure is being applied to fix this… Maybe.
I’m not sure they even play the class, if I’m honest. The most probable scenario is they will buff a passive spell learned by the spec but invisible to the player. That’s usually what they do with the buffs and nerfs of this hotfix variety. Unfortunately, this particular passive generally does not include the pet abilities. Meaning, of course, we will only see half of this 3% because half of our damage is ours and half is generated by our pets (0.03 * 0.5 = 0.015) meaning we will likely see only 1.5% increase in damage.
That’s super helpful when we’re literally at the bottom of the tier by such a wide gulf as to be ridiculous: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/29#dataset=90&aggregate=amount
We’re 12.7% away from the MIDDLE of the pack and 25.4% away from the head of the pack. In effect, we are almost exactly one tier behind the middle of the raid and 2 tiers behind the head of the raid. I expect the front runners to receive a nerf, but I rather doubt it will put them down where we are at the bottom but instead closer to the middle.
Our buff is so trivial as to not address really anything; it is analogous to spitting to put out a forest fire.
The core issues here:
- The 4pc bonus causes a direct conflict with Venthyr’s covenant ability; Choosing the kill shot proc over the cobra shot proc results in loss of damage, choosing the cobra shot proc over the kill shot proc results in loss of damage. A hunter of this covenant cannot win during 18 of every 30 seconds. The remaining 12 seconds, there is no kill shot proc as the covenant ability is on cooldown. This results in 60% loss of either the set bonus or 100% loss of the covenant ability worth of damage loss.
- This mechanic forces literally all PvE raiding Beast Master hunters into Night Fae as none of the other covenants are raid viable. If none of the other covenants rate higher damage, the player is left with the only one that does more damage than the other 3 (yet still be bottom of the charts). So, the concept of choice is really not about covenant at this point. The choice is whether we should even be playing this spec anymore.
- The pets do not scale well as they do not benefit from procs (either from Sinful) or soulbind procs (Dreamweaver’s Dream Delver are an example) and are frequently ignored when it comes to class tuning.
- The proposed hotfix increase to beast cleave is a start in the right direction but does not address super weak aoe. This is evidenced by removing Night Fae’s Wild Spirits from the equation; Beast Master aoe is extremely weak and is only propped up by a 2 minute cooldown which masks the inherent problem.
- The 4pc function for beast cleave does not inherently increase our aoe damage at all. Only people who do not play the spec would believe this quality of life adjustment, in a tier set bonus of all things (which should instead be a damage bonus adjustment), would improve aoe damage. All it does is remove one global cooldown to add a SINGLE TARGET damage ability in its place. That’s not generally a sacrifice we would make in an AOE situation.
- We’re not so close to any other spec that a 1.5% increase (or even 3% if somehow they miraculously remembered that they needed to buff the pets as well) would ever even put us close enough to the middle of the pack.
I am forced to wonder what feedback they’re listening to at this point. No data supports their fixes. They’re not responding to feedback. They seem blissfully ignorant of the mechanics of the specs they’re tuning. Yeah, this inspires confidence.
9 Likes
This statement has got to be the same sentiment that all BM hunter mains share.
I main BM hunter as I raid lead and provide a lot of coordination assistance to my guild to get the best result for my guild, and to me; to be able to perform well on a spec while watching everything happening in the raid and the timers + healing cd’s, BM is just perfect for me.
However the damage of BM hunter being so far behind even in the niche that they are which is for some reason funnelling the spec into ST is just not good for the absolutely massive hunter community especially when the ST of our spec is not great at all.
I muck around on MM in keys all the time and do fairly well and me personally just not a fan of meleSV as I picked up and mained a hunter for such a long time I just prefer being ranged.
In saying that I don’t want to see either of those specs be gutted and nerfed into the ground, just want BM to be scaled up to mid tier with average of most other specs.
Biggest reason this feels so bad is when it comes to raiding and m+ (Group Content, and what the PVE communities and guilds are based around) and yeah I do fine in keys as BM but to have the feeling of being a detriment on a group, more so with pushing keys a bit higher because you are playing a spec that you as a player really enjoy is just not a great feeling that is pushed onto BM hunter mains due to some much needed buffs, pet buffs and pet AI fixes.
All in all when it comes to BM, I don’t mind that its a fairly “easy” spec to play (as mentioned by everyone who doesn’t hunter main for some reason or another when in retrospect most classes in the game are easy) this absolutely should not be seen as a point of contention when it comes to buffing the classes and specs.
My only ask is to remove that feeling for BM hunter mains that you are a detriment to the group content that you are performing in.
When you throw the large disparity with defensive abilities into the mix well… lets just start with dps first as everyone and especially healer mains know how squishy and bad the hunter defensive toolkit is and this requires a decent amount of dev time for them to either rework or reiterate the whole defensive toolkit.
FYI try to pug a higher key at the moment as BM and see what happens when most groups see you in BM - Not Fun and Big Sad.
1 Like
This is entirely ignored on the forums but a reality in the game: You cannot even pug into keys with people who know what the worst specs are in the game. They just ignore you in queue.
It is so bad that the only way I can get keys done at higher levels is to go with people I know. They’re fully aware of how bad BM is at the moment. They take me because I’m not a pug and they know they can count on me to do as well as I can even with a handicap.
That said, I don’t think I will be able to be much help beyond a 18 at the moment - a 20 in the previous tier was at least an option. It’s very obvious when you do have people with working classes that don’t have scaling issues: BM sits at the bottom of the charts relative to other dps in higher keys as well. I only do more than someone who has less gear than I do and always do less than people who do have the same level of gear I have.
4 Likes
Copium
Well then, the RWF is over, let’s see what decent changes they have planned for BM. 
…any second now…
“We are nerfing MM and SV damage to bring them more in line with the other hunter spec”
1 Like
Wait, is that actually a thing?
3 percent buff is nothing 30% might put us in the middle of the pack. DH’s without a tier set are out DPS’ing us with a tier set. It’s like putting one of those tiny bandaids on a huge gaping wound. Our PET AI is terrible. You keep giving us mastery gear which does nothing for our damage. Kill command hits like a wet noodle. I dont think anyone at blizz actually plays BM hunter.
2 Likes
“we’d rather you didnt play beast mastery hunter”
1 Like
Not true. I just got AOTC last night. The jailer fight requires good mechanics throughout entirety of fight . One dead dps holds back the group no matter how much more dps they do than us.
No, its not… yet…
If i wouldnt be convinced that this mess is the result of pure incompetence and would for a moment entertain the thought that the current balancing status was deliberate, i would have to come to the conclusion that this is their attempt at forcing players to play MSV.
By nerfing BM to 6 feet under, giving MM a super annoying rotation and giving SV op damage, they are trying their best.
Guys, BM is fine! Its still doing more damage than a dead player!
8 Likes
Ha. I sure hope that’s true. I was doing some analysis to see if I could figure out where players are getting disconnected from the reality of the truly terrible numbers for BM and I think I’ve narrowed it down.
At normal tier (less than heroic or mythic), BM is roughly in the middle (though lower than) of the pack. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/29#aggregate=amount&difficulty=3 I didn’t look at the top parses for that, I wanted to see the full range just to get a sense of best and worst.
That seems on par with the comments in the forum that BM is fine. It is, for those who are only doing normal. Where it becomes a problem is at anything higher than normal. Once you get into heroic, you see a huge drop in places vs normal: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/29#aggregate=amount&difficulty=4
When you get to mythic, well, it becomes literally the worst: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/29#aggregate=amount
This is indicative of two very significant issues:
- Scaling
- Tier set bonuses (in this context, 4pc which I expounded upon at length in the PTR feedback thread, the pre-launch thread, the March 9th hotfix thread, and well, this one).
I think the majority of players are not aware of this because their level of content difficulty will never lend them to see it. But, the moment you start playing higher content (be it raids or high M+ keys), it becomes obnoxiously blatant.
2 Likes
In short, it is one of 2 things…
No intention, for the past 15 plus years to balance World of Warcraft. They like to pick and choose classes to shine.
Or
Incompetence and ignorance. We don’t know how or They look at the community and say, they will continue to PAY, keep playing and deal with it… or quit. We don’t care.
I am guilty of the above, hoping the blips on the radar come more often. I love playing a hunter, only class I have ever played. Been playing since vanilla. There is nothing wrong with that. It boggles the mind knowing the class that has had the most representation overall has received the least love. When we are strong, it is a problem for everyone else.
Look at mages for example, when is the last time they were complete garbage in all phases of the game, PVE, PVP, w/e. And if/when they were, how long did that last? There is not much more to say. Working as intended.
I see hunters at the moment being able to compete to a point in some aspects of the game… but maybe it is to early to know for sure.
I would rather have better defensive buffs for the class than this 3% buff…
1 Like
Not asking for any spec to be nerfed with what follows…
Blizzard, go play BM in a +15 or higher with a Prot Paladin tank using the shield leggo, you will be lucky to out dps them on any trash pack when you use Wild Spirits, not a chance while your 2 minute cooldown is down. Please remember a good prot paladin is going to pull more than 4.
Why is it OK for a TANK to do 20k DPS every trash pull, yet BM is stuck waiting on a 2 minute cooldown to do 20k DPS every other trash pacK???
Further, go run any +15 or higher key and show us a trash pull that is not 5+ mobs, easily 75%+ of pulls are more than 5 mobs. Only time our 2nd leggo is doing any damage in most +15 keys is when on a boss/mini-boss.
Why is it OK for some DPS specs to do 50% or more AoE damage than BM hunters and still do equal or more ST DPS than BM?
We live and die by maintaining our 3 stack of barbed shot. This alone mitigates any perceived ease of play because we aren’t rooted by a cast time.
Our pets are 50% of our damage and you consistently ignore that we have pets when addressing the spec. Animal Companion is our best choice yet it applies the aura to anything beyond the 2nd pet, it actually nerfs talents Murder of Crows, Killer Cobra
Blizzard your biggest mistake was introducing the spec aura to the game, it started out with best intentions but unfortunately human nature took over. You are using this now as a crutch instead of fixing core problems within a given spec (Animal Companion).
You then went ahead and compounded this mistake with borrowed power systems, which apparently you are unable to understand evaporate from expansion to expansion and instead seem to believe BM is still using Borrowed Power systems from the prior expansion.
If you take one thing away from this post, let it be this… Only tier sets as borrowed powered next expansion and between now and then fix the under laying problems for all specs
3 Likes
I’d rather not shoot myself in the foot by making a statement like that. I cannot and would not ever support that position.
When the community creates the meta list, it becomes an instant “I don’t have to think anymore” for less informed players. It then becomes an excuse for those less informed players to deny players who don’t play the meta - or, worse, those who play the worst specs. Blizzard doesn’t seem to understand this behavior exists, let alone that this behavior is practiced.
I warned prior to the QoL tier hotfix that this behavior would have detrimental consequences to the player base. It seems, as should be obvious, that it was a valid concern. Yet, again, radio silence from Blizzard despite them saying they want feedback (which they proceed to ignore).
You are missing the point (sarcasm), better defense vs a 3% (or in your own words 1.5% buff) would have greater impact. Now if the damage buff was eye opening or worthy of excitement, then okay…
I got the point. You’re flat wrong and you would compound the problem rather than address it. Doubling down on a bad idea is still supporting a bad idea. No thank you. Never.