I will have to agree with the above comment. I don't think I have been able to see any WWS parses where our Hunters haven't had ~40% of their damage coming from auto shot.

Howitzer -
One of my real concerns with the BM build is the ability to function with out a Shadow Priest in particular or a good group structure in it's absence. Can you give an example of a typical raid structure for say a magtheridon kill? We currently only have one shadow priest and I cant see me getting in a group with him any time soon.

The other reason I have not yet respecced is I am still testing a hybrid build. I am currently 0/31/30 and self buffing to 1950RAP with 30.5% crit with a capped hit, come patch I will go up to 2k+ with that crit. Since the respec from MM I have consistently doing better damage than the other hunters in my guild, and close to running with some of the more traditional powerhouse dps classes without the benefit of a stacked group. I want to push the issue see if i can get some better group make ups than I am currently getting without hurting raid DPS before I pass final judgment.

Looking forward to hearing about the make up of your groups as I think it will be a great help. In fact if anyone else would like to post thier actual and fantasy groups setups that would be great.

Taz

If I've got a few mana pots, I'd rather be in the rogues' dps group with the feral druid and the enhancement shaman. Beastial Wrath + trinkets and Heroism is incredible.

after the patch hopefully the hunter group will be MM hunter / surviv hunter / BM hunter / shaman / feral druid. and yes we always bring 3 hunters to raids.

I think I can help here.

First, I went from 41+ to 0/31/30 and spent some time with it, but then I discovered 0/38/23. You might give it a shot...LR really does not provide a large benefit given Hunter itemization these days. You will drop a bit of crit, but you should pick up more than enough AP to make up for it. I'd try that build before going to BM, since imo it represents a much better "hybrid" build and the ultimate non-BM raid build. Just my opinion, but crunch the numbers and see for your toon if you would be better off.

As for raid composition, a Shadow Priest is of course a great luxury, but BM is not inherently more mana-intensive than other builds. Yes, you are spamming Steady more often, but you are not spamming Arcane and Multi nearly as often. In fact, in my case, I'm seeing Arcane damage as being *barely* better than my Steady Shots, so I'm looking at dropping it altogether from my rotation. The only time it would be used if if I get a Quick Shots proc during Rapid Fire, since the GCD will start pushing Steady into the next Auto when that happens.

I've been in a bunch of different group make-ups in the past week of raiding, and I'm really liking the melee group. Shaman buffs are *incredible* for your pet, since they get all the goodies that Rogues get (10% AP, Str totem, Agi totem, Heroism), plus you get the Agi and Heroism. Furthermore, BS from the Warrior is a huge buff for the pet as well. Maybe even an MM Hunter in there for TSA. In the caster group, you get infinite mana...and that's basically it. I've found with smart consumable use, I'm keeping my mana up just fine. So for me as a raid leader (who gets to choose my group =P), I'm trying to get into the Shadow Priest group for trash/easy-farm bosses, then into the melee DPS group for a tough/new boss.

And since nothing is easy, the one exception is when there is significant environmental damage to the pet. In those cases, VT/VE spam not only keeps you plugging away, but it keeps your pet alive as well. So for Prince I always make sure I'm in the SPriest group, since my pet is always taking the shadow nova damage (no point pulling him out if he's going to get healed back to full before the next one).

There is no one "perfect" group for a BM Hunter, because each fight is different, but hopefully that gives you an idea of some of the situations I've played around with in the past week.

Maintain a healthy crit rate for KC (this will be huge in 2.1) and get that RAP up. I'm happy with my ~21.5% crit, but I'm still working on getting my RAP up a bit more (at ~1800+ with Hawk atm). I will even sacrifice a bit of my crit to get decent RAP upgrades. Probably move change my 8 crit gems for 8 Agi, so as to maintain some crit but also get the AP. In general, straight crit gems are a no-no for BM.

Exactly... You can't make a final decision on a 2.1 raiding build until you've had the chance to raid a few times with it after 2.1. In fact, I basically decided to run 41/20 now specifically in preparation for 2.1... just to figure out how the hell to play BM. I'm liking it a lot so far though and it looks like it will only be getting better with the next patch.

Of course, in 2.2 they'll probably replace pets with critters or something like that.

It's been a while since I ran the numbers but back when I raided multishot accounted for a huge amount of my damage on full instances. On a single target boss you are correct, but on trash clears and bosses with more than one target (Moroes/Curator) my auto damage was somewhere around 33-35%, versus 40-50% when BM. To me that's a big deal, it means I'm using 2 buttons instead of 1. Others may not care but having a class change from 3 shots pre-TBC to 1 shot is a big deal.

Perhaps we differ in our definition of raid involvement. I admitted BM was more micromanagement (as someone else stated), but I found a lot of the involvement was mostly frustration in getting the pet to act correctly. Something being a PITA to make work properly, and involvement with the raid, are two different things to me. Yes, it's a lot of work to keep your pet alive and active, while still doing damage yourself, but that's simply the pets being a problem. My definition of involvement is taking burst damage chances on a boss. Remember the MC days when you had to carefully use your aimed and multishots to not peel agro? Hunters don't have that burst DPS ability anymore. Hitting one button doesn't make me feel important to a raid's overall damage output. BM involvement is more of a nuisance than anything else.

With the changes to Kill Command in 2.1 does anyone have any thoughts on the value of a constant 600 armor penetration set bonus?

It might be worth sacrificing some upgrades to keep that set bonus, especially as BM.

It is actually a slightly better debuff for a marks hunter since your attacks ignore armor, not your pet's.

Right now im just following socket bonus's using 16 AP for red, 4 crit and 6 stam for blue, and finally 8 crit for yellow. Would it be worth it to replace the sockest with all 8 agi?

I was trying out a BM build tonight following much of the advice in this thread. The first thing I did was help out two guildmates on alts on the path of conquest questline to get used to new bindings and such.

I just felt utterly neutered as a BM hunter. Scattershot and Silencing Shot are not raiding tools . . but without them I felt almost naked. Not having perma-traps with the beastlord bonus also just felt wrong.

I'm going to stick with it for at least one raid, but I just don't think I can cope with this as a hunter

I mainly came here to ask for clarification on two things though (and at 4 am I just can't bring myself to do the math). Do you just use a steady/auto cycle, or does the amount clipped from autoshot justify arcane shot as well when it is up? If yes, multi-shot too?

Second, under rapid fire + BW, how slow of a bow do you need to justify staying with an auto/steady cycle?

2.6 brings you to about 1.6s between autoshots
If you think your ping and reaction time can handle it, then thats optimal.
If not, 2.8 or 2.9 is probably fine.

Bear in mind that you will also occasionally get quickshot procs during rapid fire too - whether thats worth bearing in mind when choosing spec and weapon speed is another question of course.

Hmm looking at the 38/23 build, assuming you get 3 points into master marks, would you not be better off post 2.1 with going 36/25 and geting survival instincts. Same 4% ap boost for two talent points with the addtion of 4% damage mitigation.

Taz

I've read some very interesting comments in this thread and i'd like to post some of mine.
I have raided with all hunter specs (currently BM again). After 2.1 one thing is for sure, i am not going to be MM....

In this post i'll state some facts concerning BM and MM specs, i am aiming on pointing out some details that are often not mentioned and if taken into account, they surely make some talents seem less apealing than they seem with a first look.

I will not try to make a point about which spec is better, i just want you to consider some facts that most of times are left out, when people evaluate specs.


MM:
Being a BM or Survival speced hunter means that you usualy go into MM tree up to mortal shots (20 points), so you miss the talents that are beyond this.

1.Barrage and imrpoved barrage: the buffing of multi-shot's dmg is not as usefull as it may seem in theory, becasue multi shot doesnot contribute to hunter's total dmg by a that significant %. About 10-12% i'd say.

2.Master Marksman: the alchemy nerf will have an impact on the usefulness of this talent. I can run the numbers for you, but that would just make my big post even bigger. Do it yourself and see.

3. a general comment about the tree... As we get better gear, our AP will scale pretty good, but not our crit chance, on the contrary if you are Survival speced hunter then your crit will scale, maybe not with a great rate, but still it will scale. I am not sure how important this is, it's just a conclusion based on the mechanics of the MM tree, a conclusion i would like to insert in the discussion and hear your opinion about it.


BM:
A significant difference between MM and BM specs, based on the tree mechanics is the following:

It's easier for a MM hunter to take advantage of his talents and convert the theoretical benefit into raw dmg. What i mean is that talents which increase your AP, crit, % of dmg, e.t.c. (MM talents are like this) are simple straightforward talents. You can benefit 100% of such talents when dealing dmg. On the contrary, the +20% shooting speed increase of a BM, the buffing of pet's dmg, e.t.c. are talents that are affected by things like "shot rotation/cycle, time between special and auto shots, pet's survivability, e.t.c.". Such talents need special "handling" and you can't benefit 100% from them, which makes the BM spec a harder to play spec and a spec which makes your dmg fluctuate a lot on different boss fights, different raiding nights, e.t.c.

1. Serpent's swiftness' +20% speed increase is not a +20% dmg increase. This is a pretty obvious thing, but some hunters make this mistake. It increases auto shot and steady shot's dmg by about 20%. Analyze your shots and you'll see that auto shot + steady shot contribute to a BM hunter's total dmg by about 55%... so it's an about 10-11% total dmg increase.


---take into account that the numbers are rough estimates. Mostly i am trying to describe a more correct way of evaluating the importance/usefulness of certain talents---


2. BM tree buffs pet's dmg, while not buffing yours as much as MM tree does. One little detail, that usualy none mentions, is that you will not miss but your pet will miss quite often on boss fights (even with 2/2 Animal handler). You'll see this if you use swstats or recap and analyze the source of your total dmg in a boss fight, the misses/hits/e.t.c.

Which means that MM tree, which buffs your damage is not affected by missed shots... while BM tree that relies more on your pet's dmg, is greatly affected by misses (my pet's melee miss rate is about 20%). Additionaly, it's affected by glancing blows and pet's survivability.


3. one good thing is that your auto shot's casting time is 20% faster, which leads to less "lost time" between a special shot (like multi-shot) and an auto shot.

My experience so far is that playing a raiding hunter and dealing good DPS is far more complicated and hard, than some mages/locks/e.t.c. think... BM and MM specs are both good and viable raiding specs. BM will become more viable and stronger after 2.1

Which spec is better for one depends greatly on his playstyle, his effectiveness to use pet correctly, the nature of the boss fight, his raiding envinroment (raid setup, healers healing pet occasionaly or not...) and his current gear.

There are so many factors to take into consideration, that whoever claims that he can fully analyze these 2 specs and say for example that "BM spec is better in general" or the opposite thing, is propably mistaken.



One last comment about the relation between gear and spec, think the following...

Which spec benefits more from a 5% crit increase ? BM or MM ?

MM is the correct answer.



The answer to the question "which spec is better for one" depends greatly on one's gear, meaning on his current unmodified (by talents) AP and crit chance.

This question is a very hard one to answer and the answer is different for different people. All hunters should try both specs and use the one that works better for them.

I wouldn't reccomend MM after the 2.1 patch, unless something changes. BM and survival specs are geting a buff, while MM tree's usefulness gets an indirective nerf, due to the fact that we won't be able to buff our AP with elixirs/flask as much as we are able to do now.

I consider 2.1.0 patch as the rebirth of the Survivalist hunter...

Wouldnt say rebirth of survivalist, more like.. It's avaible for more people because it doesnt require buffs+pots and top notch gear to be viable.

You are right on this, i stand corrected.

Since this is correct, I think it's safe to conclude that under hasted conditions you need to stop using steady shot. I'd suggest the following general rule:
If your hasted attack speed drops below 1.5 + latency, then stop using steady shot and use arcane/multi as they come off of cooldown.
Thoughts?

If you are chain casting it, I guess it would make no difference. However, when trying to make sure you aren't clipping an auto, having its speed increased is still handy.

edit: unless there is something regarding auto and global cooldown? (not 0.5 hunter cooldown)

Yes Intermisson, you are correct there of course, and that is a benefit, although it is probably unique to BM as a MM hunter will be trying to slot 2 specials.

And what Iron says is also right although..I find that Multishot when lots of haste is active seems to be an even worse offender than steady for clipping the next autoshot(possibly due to some animation issues the same as autoshot)

In response to orsraunia's post: While I agree with most of what you said and I understand that English is your 2nd language, (I assume), [EU], etc. some things that were said didn't come across correctly to me. Regardless, what I gathered from it all is you're saying MM is a more laid-back 3 button rotational approach to "Huntering", while BM is a bit more involved because of pet dependencies. There are a few things that have actually ANNOYED me thus far from the 4-5 days since I've respecced from Marks. Basically, I hate having to ask Paladins for BOM/BOK for the pet. I almost feel bad doing this tbh... I even offered them some gold as a bonus to wasting reagents on my cat! Then, I realized its their friggen job and stopped giving a shit about it. Now I just bitch. =) One other thing, I've noticed that I can't use the damn pet on Solarian in TK. The friggen pet sucks up the debuffs and can cause nasty things to happen if they go unnoticed.

Bottom line....BM has been awesome DPS on fights where the mobs don't make it their duty to rip my pet's face off, and BM has been a horrible burden on fights where my pet can't be used without frequent and quick deaths. Overall, I love BM and I miss MM. Funny no? You get used to playing your class a certain way for 2 years and then change overnight to a spec you figure you'd never even consider because it has such a wow social stigma aka, (bm spec you fooking newblar /point /spit), but here we are with a 10,000+ views thread where obviously thousands of hunters are considering making the move to BM especially in 2.1. Whatever spec you are or choose, the class itself still needs help that can only come from the devs making much needed changes.

Its a logical move. One I have used while MM spec because my lag would not allow me to weave steady shots. Especially when bloodlust + rapid fire + Imp. AtoH + Abacus of the Violent Odds was used. I have pushed 3.3 speed weapons to machine gun speed, very useful when JoW is on the mob.

Right now to deal with my mana starvation, I have 1.8 speed weapon in my bags. I usually wait for cool down on Abacus and Rapid Fire before calling for JoW on the boss, then I pop my fast weapon in and use hastening attacks with auto attack only. I can regen quite a bit of mana this way, but yes my dps takes huge hit for next 15 seconds. I do this along with heavy use of Fel mana potions.