Beast Mastery Bible 3.0

Mattaos · 10/21/08, 1:09 PM

It seems the original WotLK hunter thread is filling up fast with a lot of information about all 3 specs and now might be a good time breakout a separate thread for Beast Mastery hunters. I am sure other threads will follow for Surv and MM soon.

BM hunters were the top DPS spec for TBC using the "cookie cutter" build 41/20/0. With WotLK some new mechanics have been introduced that have altered the old school BM approach to raiding, i.e. unlinked Auto Shots, new pet talent trees, increased pet dps and our 51 point talent giving access to exotic pets.

Beast Mastery Bible 3.0

This thread will be reserved for topical discussions for the Beast Mastery...

Raiding spec
Talent reviews
Shot rotations
Pet talents
Top dps pets
Major/minor glyphs
Theorycrafting

Useful Tools:
Talent Calculator
Pet Talent Calc
WotLK DPS Spreadsheet (V.78a)
General Class Information and Statistics

How to effectively use this thread...

Most information about WotLK related talents, abilities and pets are still new and subject to change. The development of this thread will be ongoing. If there is information available on a certain topic the best way to locate it is by using the "Search this thread" tool at the top of every forum. Use it or take the time to read through the entire thread before asking questions that have already been covered multiple times.

Download and use the Hunter Spreadsheet. The spreadsheet can help to answer questions you may have about your gear choices, shot rotations, spec decisions, etc... before you even have the chance to post a redundant question on the forums. There is a link provided above to download the spreadsheet and an entire thread dedicated to its development. Use the tools available to the hunter community before asking the community to hold your hand to teach you how to play your hunter.

NOTE: This thread should mainly be reserved for Q&A based on known (or upcoming) data regarding the BM spec, or to discuss theroycrafted data about talents, spec or shot rotations.

There are NO cookie cutter specs currently, so please do not ask redundant questions about specing.
There are NO current standard macros being used, so please do not ask redundant questions about macros.

As more concrete information is decided by the hunter community on standard practices for the Beast mastery spec (i.e. specs, pets, talents, macros, etc...), I will update this page for quick reference.

[Reserved for future updates]

Mattaos · 10/21/08, 2:53 PM

** All the information below was discussed prior to the most recent changes to pet damage and steady shot. Some information listed may be dated or inaccurate. For the most current, up-to-date information on the BM spec search the later pages of this thread **

The following Macro(s) are the ones currently being used by many hunters (not just BM)... [Update] 11/25/08

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/cast Kill Shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] <insert pet action here>*
/cast Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE")

* The /cast [target=pettarget, exists] line can be changed to any talent you want to be manually triggered.

It has been noted that adding the /cast !Auto Shot line while un-checking the "Auto Shot/Attack" option in the combat interface menu assists in making sure your auto shot queues properly and begins firing without waiting on the initial Steady Shot. Auto Shot does fire independently and will continue to shoot at the rate of your attack speed until you stop firing (or your target is dead). Applying the line for Kill Shot is preference, but make sure to add it on the top line to prioritize it over Steady Shot when it comes available.

#showtooltip Bestial Wrath
/cast Kill Command
/use <insert trinket name> or <equipslot#>
/cast Bestial Wrath

#showtooltip Rapid Fire
/cast Rapid Fire
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Call of the Wild

These macros are a simple way to reduce our already bloated keybinds by combining 2-3 burst DPS abilities into one. Note that burst damage macros can vary based on available talents and the timing of certain abilities in relation to other abilities. These are intended as examples and not cookie cutter macros.

The BTW macro works best with a BM spec including Longevity, which reduces the CD of BW up to 84 sec (3/3 Longevity) and even down as far as 70 sec using the Glyph of Bestial Wrath also. The new Kill Command is on a 1 min. CD (no more KC macro spam) and can be used to fire off with BW for extra pet burst damage. Kill Command can easily be incorporated into the above shown Steady Shot macro also.

This is posted to touch on the current and most common macros being used as of WotLK release. Of course, these may change with future patches, class improvements and/or class tested results.

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[Update] 11/25/08

The following are the current BM raiding specs being tested/discussed for level 80. Certain talents like Spirit Bond, Imp Mend Pet and GFTT are adjustable. The main points of the DPS specs being tossed around currently is focused on max DPS potential for raiding.

*NOTE: It has been recently tested on several occasions by raiding hunters that the 9% hit cap rule may be an overkill and, in fact, the cap is more in the range of 8%. This has been proven to apply to the hunter solely at the moment and additional testing is being done to determine whether the pet is held to the same hit standard. This new information helps us to restructure spec builds that incorporate Focused Aim to fill-in the gap of missing hit rating not met via gear. Focused Aim is also currently being tested to prove whether its "hit" component transfers to our pet, which a majority of the test done so far show us that it does NOT effect our pet's hit chance.

52/12/7 - This build goes down the Survival tree in order to pick up 2/2 Survival Instincts (4% Steady Shot crit) by shifting 2 points from Mortal Shots and picking up Invigoration. Another option is to leave points out of Invigoration and max 5/5 Mortal Shots. Both builds yield excellent DPS, though taking 2/2 Invigoration might be a better option for raiding to reduce Viper up-time. The idea for this build is to increase the proc rate of Cobra Strikes thus increasing FI and Frenzy up-time, plus the amount of mana returned if Invigoration is taken. Also, a boost in Steady Shot damage.

50/21/0 - This is the Readiness build, which naturally drops 21 points into the MM tree to take Readiness. The logic behind this spec is to max the amount of times BTW can be used. The down side to this build is reduced pet DPS, since Cobra Strikes is not maxed. Not taking 3/3 Longevity takes the power out of this build, so reducing pet damage is the alternative.

52/14/5 - Less mana efficient, but picks up most of the high DPS talents like 3/3 Longevity, 3/3 Cobra Strikes, 5/5 Mortal Shots and 5/5 Imp Tracking. Uses only 1/2 GFTT, so a higher crit rate (25%+) is ideal.

Other possible builds using the 51 point BM talent:

51/15/5 - A standard build for a new level 80 wanting to use an exotic pet or have access to the 4 extra pet talent points, but still wanting to do a fair amount of damage. Assuming crit rating is low this build has 2/2 GFTT to help keep your pet from becoming focus starved and takes 5/5 Imp Tracking for increased, sustained player damage.

54/17/0 - Similar to the previous 51 point BM build, but drops Imp Tracking to max 3/3 Longevity and 2/2 Rapid Killing. The reduction in pet special and BTW CD is good DPS boost, plus the reduced CD for Rapid Fire.

[Reserved for updates]

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Sample Pet Builds

Ferocity Non-Exotic (High DPS build)

Tenacity Non-Exotic (Can also drop RoS for 2/2 BotRhino for added survivability, though RoS can be used on the MT/OT)

[Updated links coming soon]

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Suggested Glyphs

The following glyphs are not reserved for the BM spec, but tend to provide excellent synergy for the spec.

Major:

Glyph of Bestial Wrath
Glyph of Steady Shot
Glyph of Serpent Sting (Allows 2 extra Steady Shots before refresh)
Glyph of Aspect of the Viper (Reduced Viper up-time)
Glyph of Aspect of the Hawk (Increased hasted Auto Shots)

Minor:

Glyph of Mend Pet (Allows the pet to gain happiness in combat)
Glyph of Revive Pet (Allows a faster pet rez during pushback spells)
Glyph of Feign Death (Allows more frequent aggro dumps)

Questions, discussion and/or elaborations on this (or other potential) level 80 BM raiding build(s) is welcome. Just please provide reasoning/justification/testing for talent choices.

• frmorrison · 10/21/08, 3:09 PM

Some notes:

You do not need the wotlk.wowhead.com anymore, just wowhead works (it just redirects you)

You should add a note about abilities on autocast needing to be on the pet bar, like Growl and Cower.

Mattaos · 10/21/08, 3:24 PM

Originally Posted by frmorrison

Some notes:

You do not need the wotlk.wowhead.com anymore, just wowhead works (it just redirects you)

You should add a note about abilities on autocast needing to be on the pet bar, like Growl and Cower.

Fixed the link and thank you for that update. I didn't realize they had changed it.

The current petbar issue seems to be a bug with pet AI and hopefully will be fixed in a future patch. The bug is causing pet abilities in the spellbook that were previously turned off to automatically toggle on after re-summoning your pet. The way to combat this bug at the moment is to place the abilities that are necessary to turn on/off (based on various situations) on your petbar to manually toggle. Having the ability on the petbar seems to keep it from auto turning itself on if you had it off prior to dismissing your pet.

For me, I keep Rabid (Ferocity), Prowl (cat), Growl and Cower on my petbar. I leave Claw, Rake (cat) and Dash in my spellbook and left on autocast all the time. I do not care for Prowl, so this was the only way for me to ensure it remained off. Growl vs. Cower is obvious since you only need one or the other turned on depending on what you are trying to accomplish, i.e. pet tanking or pet dpsing.

flimflam · 10/21/08, 4:30 PM

Not sure if this is wanted but i think since it applies to pets, it could be useful.

Our pets that bring buffs/debuffs (* indicates exotic pet):

Attack Power: Wolf -> Furious Howl
Armor (Major): *Worm -> Acid Spit
Armor (Minor): Wasp -> Sting
Cast Speed Slow: *Core Hound -> Lava Breath

Mattaos · 10/21/08, 4:56 PM

Thank you, Flimflam

Here is a link to a full list of pets and there current specials (exotics included)... Pet List

As of 10/21/08

Some pets to note that have both been documented on beta and on live servers as top DPS performers are the Cat and the Scorpid. Both are none Exotic.

Cat's special ability is Rake and Prowl. Prowl is unchanged for the most part from the old ability, but Rake is the ability that is producing the most results for this pet. The cat also comes with a focus dump, Claw.

Rake
Rank 6
25 Focus Melee Range
Instant 10 sec cooldown
Rake the target for 59 to 83 bleed damage and an additional 21 to 27 damage over 9 sec.

Scorpid's special ability is the same Scorpid Poison that made it a very popular pet choice for PvP, especially for arena drain teams. Currently, Scorpid Poison has been producing very big raid DPS numbers when it is able to maintain a consistent 5 stacks (typically 1 to 2 points in GFTT is needed to provide enough focus). The scorpid also comes with a focus dump, Claw.

Scorpid Poison
Rank 6
25 Focus Melee Range
Instant 4 sec cooldown
Stings an enemy for 85 Nature damage over 10 sec. Effect can stack up to 5 times on a single target.

NOTE: Both of these pets are slated for a reduction in the damage their specials currently produce with the next patch. Exotic pets are receiving an overall 10% increase in DPS across the board for all exotic families for this same patch.

Balle · 10/22/08, 2:38 AM

So, If I'm using a cat, Am I doing anything with my ss macro. Other then just Rabid, No claw or anything just keep claw on auto cast on my pet bar?

Nakari · 10/22/08, 3:52 AM

Originally Posted by Balle

So, If I'm using a cat, Am I doing anything with my ss macro. Other then just Rabid, No claw or anything just keep claw on auto cast on my pet bar?

Aside from Rabid, you don't really need other pet abilities in the macro, and as Mattaos mentioned, you can leave Claw on autocast and just leave it in your spellbook. Save the place on your pet actionbar for the abilities you only use situationally like Growl, Cower or Prowl so they don't turn on again (at least until they fix that bug).

Vegelus · 10/22/08, 3:53 AM

No, all other pet abilities are best on auto cast left either on pet bar or in spell book.

edit: already answered.

Nakari · 10/22/08, 4:04 AM

About pet hit scaling: Since 3.0.2 pets scale with 100% of the hunter's chance to hit, including hit gained from Focused Aim - if the hunter is hit capped, so is the pet. Because of this, Animal Handler is currently quite useless, though the coming 3.0.3 patch will change the 4% hit to 10 Expertise, which decreases the chance the pets attacks are dodged or parried by 2,5%. This change again makes Animal Handler a solid DPS increase, as hit has no effect on dodges/parries (a typical boss has about 5,5% dodge and up to 15% parry, though our pets normally should't attack from the front).

Intie · 10/22/08, 4:24 AM

Originally Posted by Mattaos

Cat's special ability is Rake and Prowl. Prowl is unchanged for the most part from the old ability, but Rake is the ability that is producing the most results for this pet. The cat also comes with a focus dump, Claw.

Rake
Rank 6
25 Focus Melee Range
Instant 10 sec cooldown
[color="Blue"]Rake the target for 59 to 83 bleed damage and an additional 21 to 27 damage over 9 sec.[/COLOR

I guess Blizzard thinks that Cats are obviously too good now because they will be lowering damage of Rake in (one of the) upcoming patches.

From 9095 beta build, undocumented changes:
Rake (Cat) focus cost reduced from 25 to 20. Damage lowered. (From 59-83 + 21-27 over 9 sec to 24-34 + 22-28 over 9 sec)

I'm not very enthusiastic number cruncher myself so I can't tell how much will this nerf change the positions of top dps pets. Would be nice if some would be up to the task and could share the results with us.

Aluriel · 10/22/08, 4:46 AM

I didn't see anyone mentioning scorpid poison damage getting buffed again. Unfortunately i don't have any wws report, recount data, screenshot or something similar to prove it but i saw it ticking for 1.8k on BT few days ago. Scorpid totally out damages cat on my tests, raid buffed/debuffed.

I know the base damage will get nerfed in upcoming patch but if they don't cahnge the way it scales it will again do some pretty nice dps. Sadly if you have more than one hunter with scorpid it kinda messes up, only one of them will apply the poison.

Drrakkainen · 10/22/08, 7:28 AM

Typical shot rotation? Would it be sting - steady - steady .. steady - sting? or something more advanced?
As I'm leveling and playing with exotic pets I'm runing with 51/10/0 build, for it I'd suggest 1 point in Longevity at most since your pet wont be able to use extra attacks provided by it becasue you wont have enough focus (no GftT)

Mattaos · 10/22/08, 10:24 AM

Originally Posted by Aluriel

I didn't see anyone mentioning scorpid poison damage getting buffed again. Unfortunately i don't have any wws report, recount data, screenshot or something similar to prove it but i saw it ticking for 1.8k on BT few days ago. Scorpid totally out damages cat on my tests, raid buffed/debuffed.

I know the base damage will get nerfed in upcoming patch but if they don't cahnge the way it scales it will again do some pretty nice dps. Sadly if you have more than one hunter with scorpid it kinda messes up, only one of them will apply the poison.

The scorpid is in fact doing some very nice DPS and should still be a decent choice pet for MM or Surv hunters. The one drawback I have seen upfront using a Tenacity pet is the lower crit chance you get from the Ferocity tree. Keep in mind in the same upcoming patch FI is going raid wide, so having a pet that consistently crits offers much more utility.

One thing about the early stages of an expac is the mass amounts of changes that come with it and Blizz has already stated/shown to us that they have all the intentions of balancing the game. I mention this because it will be kind of hard to pin down one specific hunter pet as the "top dog" to be used at level 80. We just have a very smart and intuitive hunter community that finds gems like scorpid and cat dps rather quickly, so enjoy them in their current state now without getting to overly attached to their DPS for the future.

Originally Posted by Drrakkainen

Typical shot rotation? Would it be sting - steady - steady .. steady - sting? or something more advanced? As I'm leveling and playing with exotic pets I'm running with 51/10/0 build, for it I'd suggest 1 point in Longevity at most since your pet wont be able to use extra attacks provided by it becasue you wont have enough focus (no GftT)

Currently, without access to the Steady Shot glyph there really is not any advantage for a BM hunter to incorporate Serpent Sting in our rotation. Fully raid buffed our Steady Shots are going to hit for 20-25% more than a full duration of Serpent Sting and using Serpent Sting burns a GCD slot that could filled with another Steady Shot.

From a min/max PoV, not having GFTT in a level 70 raiding build is gimping your pet. Longevity really doesn't have nothing to do with increasing the pet's ability to use both its focus dump and special attack consistently. I like the concept of the exotic pets, but when there are 2 non-exotic pets out performing all other pets in DPS and partly due to a 50/11/0 build that drops a point into GFTT (1/2) to provide plenty of focus.

Klessa · 10/22/08, 10:49 AM

With the change to 3.0 how is BM for leveling? At level 47 this is my current spec Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft and was wondering if I'd be better served going through Marksman or Survival. I play on a PVP server but so far I've not experienced much PVP though I am sure that will change drastically once I reach Outlands.

Naturally I'm not looking at end game DPS but maximum efficiency in leveling for the next 23 levels.

EDIT: I forgot to ask about pets. For the first 40 levels I used a boar. It was a fine pet and held aggro well allowing me to use my mana bar to it's full potential. With the change to 3.0 I've picked up a Bear but didn't much care for it's swipe ability. If the autocast was more intelligent to only use when more than one mob was within range than that'd be great. After reading here I've switched to a Gorilla and was wondering what pet talents best serve it. Another hunter thread mentioned Thick Hide wasn't that great a talent b/c armor offered minimal bonus.

I was thinking about cobra reflexes 2/2, charge 1/1, then spike collar 3/3. Hit points don't seem to be an issue at this point in the game for my pet.

Also, I tamed a cat and am interested in how much it's improved DPS over the tenacity pet will affect leveling. Is there an inherent aggro modifier between the pet families which would allow a Tenacity pet to hold aggro better than the other two? Because if a cat will hold aggro just as well I think I may be served better by it's greater dmg output.

Thanks for any advice in advance.