WarTotem

Is it just me or does Noxious Sting seem a bit lackluster for PvE? I'm mostly concerned that you can't couple it with Imp. Stings without losing too much points in SV which are more important. And since you can recast Scorpid as much as you want to proc L&L, as it doesn't lose any effect like Serpent refreshing tick timers, I don't see why an SV hunter can't take up the Scorpid job on him. An MM Hunter would then be able to just spam Chimera Shot, getting 3 ticks + instant worth 2 ticks on top of the dmg Chimera already does. That's 50% DPS more from Serpent Sting, + the physical damage.
I also see the possible use of Focused Aim(which should be swapped with Hawk's Eye imo) in AoE heavy envrionments, as you definately want that Steady to finish as it procs HP.
I came up with a buffbot spec although I'm currently unsure as to Imp. HM vs GftT/Aimed/Wyvern or Trap Mastery vs Wyvern.

PS: It looks like L&L + TNT + HP + ES will become a major utility combo. I would suggest just spamming ES once you get the L&L proc, it still does 125% of base hit dmg on a single target and you can get 4 hits in a row, giving 8 ticks in 6 seconds which have a 15% higher crit chance, all proccing HP

 

vclouds

I agree that insta-dismiss feels hokey. I don't really like that option.

I also don't like the choice between having a visible pet at the opening of an arena match or summoning a pet once I came out of stealth. The pet would probably come out with only a yellow face instead of a happy green one since it would lose happiness from the dismissal (I think? Unless a dismissal during the beginning of the match doesn't make it lose happiness - I've never tested it). It would suck to lose that 125% pet damage just because I didn't want to have a visible pet at the beginning of the match.

Prowl (since I'm not a NE) has always seemed a little lackluster to me anyway. Aside from the stealth itself, the 40% more damage on one attack didn't really seem worth it for the loss of some of the other neat abilities that other pet families offered. Still, if they don't do something with pets when the hunter is stealthed, pet stealth makes cats a much more attractive option for hunter/druid and hunter/rogue 2's. It just bothers me that it almost becomes the only option for a stealth group.

 

drole

Dismissing pets before the start have no negative effects in by far the majority of cases. If you feed it before you dismiss it it will come out with green happiness always at least.

 

KraxisSingular

I would like to know which talents are so vital. In this build you lose 1 point in MT. Not optimal, but you could just take one point back from Imp Stings of course depending on which is better. Stings are going to be really good to use, might just as well make them do something.

Further, Scorpid lasts 20 seconds and is more expensive 11% base mana over 9%. The mana usage will be the same, but the return from HP will be less and the 'free' shots will be less, and the damage will be less. Spamming Scorpid to get LnL procs is just not very conductive. It is after all 'only' 15%, so there is a good chance you have to spam it for a good length, waste a whole lot of mana (becaus it is more expensive). With Serpent the Surv gets 3% damage while it ticks, granting him some extra benefit eventhough it doesn't proc LnL.

The MM needs only apply Scorpid once, lessening the load on the other specs. At the same time this allows him to get rid of Imp Stings and get Imp Hunter's Mark which neither of the other specs is likely to have. Yes, he will lose some personal DPS, but I don't think it will be that much. Not weighed up against the benefits in the Surv tree. And the freedom the BM Hunter gets. Of course I might be wrong, but looking at the trees so far I don't think so.
This is of course provided there are three Hunters. Two Hunters the situation is the same, one Hunter and Scorpid is likely to be the sting of choice regardless.

Oh and btw, thanks for the Acid Spit testing. I assume that it will stack with FF too then. That is a pretty hefty bonus to rDPS. I Think we can assume around 10k armor on bosses, this takes 2k away. Topped with Sunder, CoR and FF it will rock.

 

takel

Prowl is probably one of the weakest family abilities. Nifty in a way that an ambush by a big red cat would provides, but it's a once per fight thing that after it's gone, your kitty is back to clawing away.

We used to have an instant-dismiss pet by using Revive Pet when the pet was still alive and active, but Blizzard removed that on the pretence that instantly dismissing pets would make them virtually impossible to kill, which I agree.

I'd say Imp. Revive Pet should have an added bonus tacked on it to reduce the cast time on Dismiss Pet by 2/4 or 3/5 seconds. 10 seconds is quite plainly too long in the situations where you need to dismiss it.

Pets are revived and gain full happiness when they are brought back out of arenas, so as long as you're regularly hitting the queues, your pet won't drop down into yellow from being dismissed and recalled at the beginning of a fight.

 

Nakari

Dismiss Pet is a 5 sec cast :P They could increase the range to more than 10 yards though.

 

takel

Crap, knew I shouldn't had typed stuff without double checking...

Anyhow... scopes...
From the very beginning we had +damage scopes only, then we had the MC +hit scope. Finally with BC we had +crit. While the +hit and +crit scopes have done remarkably well in pushing up the DPS for us, it's all pretty bland in the end and has nothing like the visual effects and the 'fun' procs the melee enchants have. Yeah yeah, healers are pretty much stuck with a passive stat enchant as well....
Heck, a +RAP and/or an Armour Pen. scope would be nice, and would still fit in the 'motif' of an optical scope.

That reminds me, can anyone test to see if +damage scopes affect chimera, kill, explosive and steady shot? Might be difficult to test but it'll be nice to know if those kinda scopes has a use other than filler while you're saving up for the big boys.

 

WarTotem

Well I base myself on a pretty basic build with Wyvern/Trap Mastery as "filler" talent and worked from there for those last 6 points. You have several options here really, being:
* Focused Aim
* Imp. HM
* 2/2 GftT
* Imp. Stings
* Trap Mastery/Wyvern Sting
* Noxious Stings
You are suggestion a build like this, while I simply see more DPS coming from this build. My reasoning is that Imp. HM definately provides more DPS (basicly an additional BoM) to the raid then either Imp. Stings or Noxious Stings. As for Focused Aim goes, a single pushback can cause a 25% DPS loss on a single Steady Shot. Although there is no examples yet, considering all the changes to classes so far, I expect to see some AoE in raids, which could seriously nerf your DPS if you get pushback frequently. Untill I see how the new Serpent Sting coefficient will work out, I'm not really convinced about it's usefulness.

Ok, spamming might not have been a good choice of words, what I meant was that you could easily put into a cycle to use every 15 seconds, just like Serpent, and you would not see any DPS/efficiency loss of the effect. Serpent Sting on the other hand requires you to wait/time out those 3sec ticks or you lose DPS. In the end, it is more requiring then Scorpid. With the current mechanics, MM hunters will probably want to go for a 12s Chimera cycle, squeezing in 4 ticks & get the 2 in the instant damage bonus.That leaves 120% damage on 80% of the time or a 50% DPS increase. BM Hunters will probably just want to spam Steady anyway, so that doesn't matter either way. Benefits are that with you having Imp HM the MM Hunter is free to take imp stings and use Serpent, which is a very good DPS boost for him.

In the end it will most likely depend on who wants to spec what tree in your WLK raiding guild, but as priorities go, I expect:
Serpent: BM gains nothing, MM gains 50% DPS from it through Chimera + 30% from Imp. Sting (total 95%), Surv gains 3% DPS (assuming Imp HM > Imp. Stings) + L&L(see later). Unless base Serpent Sting in your cycle is less then 5,85% of your damage, MM gains the most.
Scorpid: BM gains nothing, MM gains a chance to disarm every minute, if the target can be disarmed at all, Sv get L&L again.
Now, considering we're a 'pure' DPS class, expect to see only 2 hunters in the average 25-man raid. With different specs, this means:
* BM + MM: MM has to keep Scorpid up as he has the disarm effect and and can refresh it while doing damage.
* BM + SV: Who uses what sting makes almost no difference. More on L&L in the next part.
* MM + Surv: The MM gets only a disarm effect on keeping Scorpid up, while getting a major DPS boost from Serpent Sting. The Surv hunter gains only 3% dmg increase, which will most likely not weight up to the DPS gained by the MM.

About L&L:
With the current mechanics, the standard Surv cycle will be Explosive-3xSteady. It is perfectly viable to weave in Serpent Sting alternatively replacing a Steady before and after Explosive Shot every 2-3 cycles. The problem lies with Lock and Load talent. Assuming that it does not reset the cooldowns of the abilities in question, you effectively reduce your next cycle to 4,5 seconds (first ES + 2 Steady Shots replaced). This cause a displacement between ES/Steady cycle and the Serpent DoT timer, making you lose 1 GCD every time it procs. You will then have to chose between losing 1 GCD worth of NS, or lose a tick of Serpent Sting, decreasing overall efficiency.
Scorpid Sting does not have this problem. In fact, you can any of 12s, 15s or 18s cycles and you can move this 1.5s either way when you proc L&L. This effictively allows you to adjust your cylces to your mana needs. It is far more flexible in use then Serpent, and provides an MM hunter with a bigger DPS gain then a SV Hunter would get.

 

KraxisSingular

The real question that I thought up now is simply:

Will Scorpid be that important now? Until now it has been an important tool towards uncrushable situations (Shield Block isn't avalable to all nor can it do enough for all fights). The direct damage reduces is very streaky. Many healers load up heals in advance, sometimes they go through sometimes not. The advantage of Scorpid in healing mana is limited, and the advantage in being able to heal others is generally not there seeing the need to preload heals.

With the removal of crushing blows the situation might gravitate towards only Scorpid on the most fasthitting bosses, as there the extra misses from Scorpid will make the healing required less streaky than in a very hard hitting slow striking boss.

So getting either to use it should not be impossible for many fights. And depending on the MM mana situation it isn't impossible to get Imp Mark anyway. Like this.
I'm not certain that MM is so manatroubled that it absolutely require those 4% extra manaefficiency.

The entire tick-issue of Serpent for Surv is not that important. The added bonus from NS and LnL are the bigger contributors. Obviously you will want every possible tick you can, but a lost tick isn't going to destroy it. And Serpent is still cheaper.

MM gets about 150% of the DPS vanilla Serpent delivers. Surv gets various free shots and 3% overall DPS from it, plus about 104% of the Serpent DPS (expecting a lost tick and Imp Stings). That seems pretty even tbh.
Yes, obviously it all depends on the scalability and damage of Serpent after the revision. Higher scaling = a move to MM, but a somewhat poorer scaling will gravitate to Surv.

 

Redzin

You can't automatically assume the Survival hunter just by default should have Imp Hunters Mark. It might as well be better to take as a BM hunter.

Considering these 2 specs:
BM: World of Warcraft Europe -> Info -> Classes -> Hunter -> Wrath of the Lich King Beta Talent Calculator
SV:World of Warcraft Europe -> Info -> Classes -> Hunter -> Wrath of the Lich King Beta Talent Calculator (You could take the 3 points in Hawk Eye and put them in Sniper Training, PoNE or MT).

Basicly it all comes down to what gives the highest overall DPS boost. Those 2 points in Longevity for the BM or Improved Stings for the SV hunter? Personally I lean towards the Imp Stings. And if there is a Marksmanship hunter, he should have it without any doubt. To be honest though, I doubt there'll be many MM raiding hunters in WotLK considering we get another DPS class to compete with (unless it turns out MM will be out-DPSing BM).

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.

 

KraxisSingular

Wrong place to pick the points... You don't want Seperation Anxiety as of yet. You want Imp Tracking. And that leaves only vitally important MM and Surv talents left for taking the points from. The Surv Hunter at least only has some relatively fluffy talents he needs to sacrifice. Same can be said for MM Hunters. The BM Hunter will gimp himself this time.

BM spec as it is.

Now where do you want to pick the three points? Imp Tracking? 3% damage? I don't think so. GftT? Well what is the point with being a BM Hunter then? And it loses a lot of synergy with both Cobra Strikes and Invigoration. Mortal Shots? A sin! BM the talent and two more points elsewhere? BM the talent is still not that important, so perhaps. But it really doesn't look that well to do it.
BM has gotten pretty tight, to the point that there is little room anymore. The other specs can at least sacrifice something less than vital. But it is still not easy to imagine who will go and who won't on top of which spec 'sacrifices' more to get Imp Mark.

 

Kedour

There's no reason a MM pet couldn't be specced like that, but they won't be able to get the same amount of damage from their pets. I'm thinking that while MM and Survival will have superior hunter DPS to BM, the BM pets will be able to pull BM ahead in terms of overall personal DPS. even if they change the Devilsaurs family ability to be +15% attack power and get rid of the Chimera's bonuses (which they definitely will be fixing). I think this since BM doesn't give raid wide buffs they'll have to be able to bring something to the table if Blizzard wants them to be viable. I was just using that group because Survival and Beast Mastery create better group buffs.

Again, this is just my personal thoughts though, since I'm not in the beta and there's no way for me to test it.

 

Fabijo

Unless BM pets are doing > 50% of a hunter's total damage, Separation anxiety won't be worth it over Imp. Tracking. As it looks right now, a 51/15/5 build is going to be the standard. Points would then be coming out of Imp. Tracking. Unless Imp. Stings is worth 1% dps per point (and even then, 1% dps for BM hunters should be higher than 1% for SV hunters), BM hunters will be losing more than SV hunters by picking up HM.

edit: that will teach me to get distracted while typing posts

 

TrevvyTrev

Putting aside any mechanics issues with separation anxiety (SA) for the moment, such as the "uptime" on being 20 yards away from your pet, and similarly ignoring any uptime issues with imp. tracking (untrackables, etc.) the mathematical "break even" point for SA is ~33% (i.e., one-third), not 50%. For example:

Hunter dps: 1200
Pet dps: 600

Pet dps (600) makes up exactly one-third of the hunter's total dps (1800). Increasing pet damage by 10% is a 60 dps boost. Increasing hunter damage by 5% is also a 60 dps boost. This is worth noting because it is not unreasonable to suggest that BM hunter pets might equal or exceed one-third of a BM hunter's output, particularly when considering that they can be pretty close to that now for a lot of hunters, nearly all of the new talents in the tree boost dps through the pet, not the hunter, plus the innate changes to pet talents look to shift more dps into pets for all specs anyway. Additionally, while we've been wringing our hands over how to stay in range of DK/melee shaman buffs, that problem basically doesn't exist for pets. They will always be where the melees are.

 

Fabijo

Wow, you're absolutely right. SA's a little better than I thought I guess, even if it's still outclassed by a T3 talent. In that case, picking up Imp. HM will be a little easier for BM, although ditching Longevity will really hurt with keeping Rabid up if we do go that route.

 

KraxisSingular

And Call of the Wild too. 30% off that would make it more than possible to pop three times in a longer fight. Could be very important on fights fights. And of course the 10% off BW doesn't synergize well with any Use trinkets so far. 30% synergizes a lot better as there appear to be some 1.5 min trinkets.

I'm fairly certain that IHM isn't worth it for BM Hunters at this time. And We still have the distance issues with melee buffs, so SA might still not be worth it. Though if it is possible to stand at the front of the boss and the pet at the rear, and the boss is something like the size of Supermus. Then it might be possible if the melee stand to the sides... But why wouldn't they stand at the rear? Same distance problem.
Until it is solved BM shouldn't be counted on for IHM. Especially not considering that three Hunters are unlikely at this time. And the BM seems to be the third right now.

 

takel

Scorpid was/is very powerful due to the exponential scaling of avoidance once you break past a certain milestone. That and the near obsessive requirement to keep crushing blows to an absolute minimum meant that Scorpid is a critical requirement for some boss encounters.

With the way Blizzard is tipping raiding upside its head with changing or outright eliminating certain mechanics (downranking to conserve mana for one thing), we'll probably have to wait and see how the raid content pans out to determine if the 5% miss is worth it over the potential scaling and damage boost employing Serpent Sting would have. Please remember that scorpid's main goal was to reduce or remove the possibility that the tank sustains unhealable amounts of damage within a short period of time. Over the course of a raid encounter, the tank would most likely not have needed the average additional 5% damage reduction.
This could change, of course, if Blizzard plans a Loatheb style encounter where healing is extremely limited but the damage was constant enough so you know exactly when you needed to heal and could ensure every last drop of healing was utilised. Come to think of it, Naxx was going to be reintroduced...

 

KraxisSingular

Exactly.

Also, Blizzard has repeatedly mentioned that they don't like the entire focus in avoidance over threat for tanks. So I guess their plan is to make tank avoid a whole lot less. That would lower the overall percentage of damagereduction compared ot know, even if we don't count crushing in. Another 5% avoidance for a 25% avoidance tank is effectively 6.67% less damage. For a 50% avoidance tank it would be 10%, and so on as they get more. Since we can assume it will be less than now at 80, Scorpid becomes less and less important. Might be a nice gimmick skill, much like the Nature Resistance aspect. Something we want, something that might be needed, but is generally just not used much.

[EDIT]
Btw, I seem to remember something about there being a hastecap for melee or pets. Around 0.86 or something. Maybe from the Druids, I don't know. But does anyone know anything solid on this matter, one way or the other?

 

Kaejin

That would seem like something easy enough to test out with pets.

Serpent's Swiftness, Lightning Reflexes, and group with a DK with Improved Icy Talons.
20% + 20% + 30%.

I think that's the best a pet can get haste-wise, last I heard WF and IIT don't stack (or do they?). So that's effectively the cap on pet haste, unless I'm mistaken. Attack speed of 0.896, rounds up to 0.9. That doesn't seem quite right though. I'm pretty sure I saw my pet's speed lower than that before, so I must be doing some math wrong or something.


As far as Loatheb goes, I'm not sure it's prudent to worry about that quite yet. A lot of stuff in Naxx is going to have to be retuned to suit raids that are for 25 or 10 players. Loatheb and Patchwerk seem to me like two that would need some heavy changes (though obviously not the only ones). Loatheb because of potion sickness, and Patch because of all the avoidance changes and crushing blow business. Just because Naxx is back doesn't mean it's going to be the same, after all.

 

Keldin

I'm leaning towards this build WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Hunter -> Talent Calculator. But I do have some concerns about the efficiency of EW at first. Currently theres a suggested Agility cap so you gain enough crit, AP through EW and personal dps. With the changes to SV tree the personal dps doesn't seem to be a problem, also the unlinking of auto shot from steady helps a ton. The fate of MM raiding is unpredictable yet, but I'm going to throw this on the table any way. With TSA as a raid-wide buff in WofLK will there be a "new" Agility cap so EW becomes worth it?

I haven't tested MT on the beta yet, because the server lags for me bigtime, but I see people leaning towards getting it, so theres our crit problem solved I suppose.

 

Eurytos

Survival comments

-Improved Hawk is not better than Master Tact now. You'll have enough haste while raiding to take Steady Shot below 1.5 seconds, meaning any extra haste will only effect your Auto Shot damage. If you assume a 50% uptime on Improved Hawk, that's a 15% damage increase to your Auto Shot damage 50% of the time, for 5 talent points. Even if Auto Shot was 50% of your damage (which, it won't be), that would only be a .75% overall damage increase per point.

-I do assume Survival should pick up Improved Hunter's Mark because it fits best into our build. We're only giving what... Improved Stings for it? BM definitely doesn't have the room for it, considering how good the other 13 points at the top of the MM tree are and the 7 in Survival. Survival also has the easiest time picking up Aimed Shot and Hawk Eye for pulling.

-Being the puller... a Wolf for a pet will be great. Macro Furious Howl to Aimed Shot for a nice 5% boost.

-Surefooted is a PvP talent. 1% hit is very lacking in PvE with how easy hit is to come by.

-Same thing with Wyvern+Noxious Venom. No reason to take those for PvE which I like because there really isn't room for them.

-I'm looking at 3/5 Hunting Party, possibly 4/5. 5/5 is overboard for sure.

-I've always been fond of 1/2 Rapid Killing. This lines up Rapid Fire with AP Trinkets+Blood Fury+Kill Command.

-My spec: 0/20/51

 

Shenlong

Next push Abomination Strength is getting changed to 10% Strength to members within 20 yards. This means we don't need to worry about being in range for it, and our pets get more benefit. Not sure if this will last; shaman, rogues and cat druids all get more from the AP boost due to using agility to raise AP, before even taking buffs into account.

How's this for a build? Surv

A point in GftT seems all that's needed given the reworking of pet ability costs. Other talent points that could be shifted around are Master Tactician, Hunting Party and Improved/Wyvern/Noxious Stings for different synergies.

 

TrevvyTrev

Looks like you meant Cobra Reflexes instead of Lightning Reflexes. If so, then the reason you may remember seeing faster attack speed is because you forgot to include Frenzy. That's a 30% increase, so you could replace the icy talons part of your equation with that to explain any observed pet attack speeds below your calculations. (I'm assuming your memory is based on Live observations instead of grouping with Deathknights on beta, but obviously including Frenzy would explain things even if you were remembering pets under the effects of Icy Talons).

We should continue to model BM builds that include Improved Hunter's Mark (IHM) because it's not safe to assume 2 members of every class. That may be ideal, but some guilds may be heavier in one class or another if for no other reason than people's preferences, and a particular setup may be melee-heavy but "hunter-light". That said, it is definitely better for other hunters to get it if they are around, because it's going to be a percentage based dps tradeoff for a BM hunter to get it.

What we really should be asking ourselves is why we've been framing the relevant tradeoff as one that is between Separation Anxiety (SA) and Improved Tracking, and why SA keeps losing out. BM hunters should favor SA generally, so long as standing 20 yards away from the pet is possible. As mentioned earlier, a pet that is 33% of total damage is the break even point, which is not at all out of a BM hunter's reach. The data suggest that pets should surpass that, in fact. If Abomination Strength is changed to a STR boost, then the only "melee" buffs we will care about will have a range of 30 yards, which is plenty of cushion.

In any event, being able to get the same 5% overall damage boost without having to go into a third tree can beneficial, because a hunter can use SA points toward the 51-pointer. In other words, the 51/15/5 build we've been discussing effectively spends 56 points for the BM 51-point talent and a 5% boost (while skipping SA), while a 51/x/x build that includes SA gets the same 5% boost and has 5 points that can be spent elsewhere. Of course, the real upshot of this approach is the discovery that there doesn't have to be a tradeoff between SA and Improved Tracking at all -- 51/15/5 can include both, if you skip Longevity (which is probably inferior to +3% damage) and go 2/3 Cobra Strikes, which previous posts have suggested may be sufficient.

 

KraxisSingular

I suppose that Blizzard found out just how godly that buff was, and how Enhancement Shamans were howling over it, and as well as how much trouble it caused with our talents.

I guess it is time to drop the Imp Tracking since we can assume our pets will do more than 33% this time round if we are BM. But of course everything depends on that. Situational 10% buff to pet and 10% speedbuff when the other doesn't apply, or just a 5% to us (unless it applies to the pet too) on tracked targets. I have heard of untrackables, since I don't really track much in raids (always on Track Hidden) is this an issue?
And I have to ask any tester how it looks for Master vs Pet damage, the same ~30% as now (obviously the further ytou get in raiding the less the pet will contribute comparably, mine is about 27% now even with a WS)?

I think most internally hasted pets end up around 0.99 attackspeed. This can get boosted with Bloodlust right now, but not much else (Drums being one). The point I was trying to make, is that if this is true, that pets can't attack faster than a certain speed, and it is up there around 0.86, then WF totem will be a less than optimal BM totem. not only does it only provide 16/20% more Autoshots, but it would also provide our pets with less than the full bonus as well. And Bloodlust would obviously be wasted on it.
I'm sorry to bring such a vague discussion into this, but I'm certain I read somethign about a speedcap of sorts. Naturally I hope I misunderstood something.

 

Kaejin

You're right on the mark for everything. Thanks for that.

So, then. Assuming Cobra Reflexes, Serpent's Swiftness, Frenzy, and IIC; 0.6272 is the revised number. 0.63 rounded up.

0.784 is the number without IIC, and that definitely meshes better with my memories. So if anything, that at least means tooltip calculations for pet haste aren't capped at 0.86.

A melee cap on haste would have struck me as odd, anyway. I know I've gone down to 0.6 in ranged pre-BC (extreme clipping issues aside), and it would be pretty unfair to give melee a cap but not ranged.

Edit: Bloodlust and drums. Always forgetting things, this is why I don't like to do math. Anyway, assuming you can get past 0.86, I'm satisfied with saying there is no cap. My account isn't active, though, so I can't test it myself.