Beast Mastery Bible 3.0 - Page 4

Nethris · 10/24/08, 6:39 PM

Originally Posted by Mattaos

I guess it is definitely worth mentioning since we will be leveling before raiding in WotLK. A same level mob has a 11.5% (?) chance to parry, so the after Animal Handler is factored in the mob will still have a 9% chance to parry. Now, since we only have so many ways to spend our points in the upper tiers and it seems the most logical place to borrow points from to go 2/2 AH is from Spirit Bond and Imp Mend. Also, consider that in many cases we are attacking mobs that are 1-2 levels higher than us increasing that % to parry even higher.

Hmm, do we have a source for same level mob parry? I haven't been paying a ton of attention to tanking threads recently as I've been on hiatus for a bit, but I don't recall any tests done against anything but bosses and trying to narrow down the +3 level bosses use to an exact point rather than just somewhere in the 13-15% range. Parry haste isn't really that big a concern though, tanks didn't like the possibility of making potential crushing blows even closer together, but the effect on average incoming damage is rather small. 10 expertise for pets is effectively 5% pet hit while leveling, and 2.5% pet hit in instances, and in both cases can't be replaced by gear, so the matter of how much dodge and parry are left isn't of that much importance really.

Originally Posted by Tashia

The question would be, why is the gorila so much better than the rhino?? it's not even an exotic pet, which rhino is..
Is not the goal of the BM 51 point talent to give us the best pets in any situation (tanking/dps/pvp)? From what I see here I wouldnt take a rhino over the gorila in any situation...why make the rhino then? Am I missing something? Even if Stampede costs no focus from what I see...it by far worse than Thunderstomp...Do any of you see any situation where Stampede could be better than Thunderstomp?

Or does the Rhino has Stampede AND Thunderstomp?

Stampede's knockback makes rhinos a very interesting option for PvP - they still have a focus dump for damage dealing, and being a tenacity pet makes them rather hard to kill. Punting people around in PvP with them is the main attraction though, both for knocking people off ledges and just as a casting interrupt, or even as a way to try to keep someone in your frost trap. In PvE it can still be used as a spell interrupt of sorts and for at least moderate AoE aggro, but it really appears to be PvP oriented.

Originally Posted by verata

You don't have to put

/use Trinket of Awesomeness

in a macro to use them, unless you really want to. You can keep your character count down by using

/use 13
/use 14

which will use whatever trinkets are in your first and second trinket slots, respectively.

That does pose a problem in PvP as that will also use your non-DPS trinkets, so in some cases using trinket names may be the better option.

Klessa · 10/24/08, 11:51 PM

Originally Posted by Rapparee

And the bible link at the front, perhaps should have a cookie cutter pet talent layout as well. I'm not saying it's required, but perhaps letting people know what talents to have at 70 without BM is important vs. 80 when they'll have spare points.

I'd appreciate something along this line. I came here now looking for info on talents for my Gorilla. I have this so far Pet Calculator - Wowhead and am debating putting my next point into Intervene. But I'm curious if it works off autocast or if it's yet another button I have to micro manage

Grace of the Mantis looks good too. But my needs at 53 are a bit different than most people reading these threads I imagine.

I do agree with Mattaos though. The gorilla is simply awesome for grinding. I've tried most of the tenacity pets now and none of them compare to the ape for pulling large mobs and holding aggro. At 41 I went to the pirate cove in Tanaris and killed packs of 8-12 at a time with volley and explosive trap, using FD to dump aggro. Now I'm in Ungoro killing whole herds of dinosaurs at a time!

Nakari · 10/25/08, 3:10 AM

Originally Posted by Mattaos

Haste is probably not the best term to use when describing weapon speed. What I meant by that is the xbow is so fast in a BM build that it "acts" like added haste in the effect of forcing attack speeds sub 1.5s while under normal raid haste effects.

The advantage of a 3.0 weapon currently (post 3.0) is the speed of the weapon after talented with Serpent Swiftness and a quiver allows more room for hasted effects (i.e. Heroism, Drums, Rapid Fire, WF, Ret Aura, etc...) to drop our speed down into the 1.5s range without completely surpassing it. The big draw of the Xbow pre-3.0 was the weapon speed and how well it fit into a rotation due to our shot mechanics, but unlinked Auto Shots eliminated the need for shot rotations in the sense we were used to in TBC. Stats are important, but top end damage is a key factor for maxing DPS currently with the amount of haste available to us outside of our talents & weapons. The Xbow does not hit nearly as hard as Bristleblitz, Betrayer Bow or Twins Bow for example.

I think you overvalue the importance of weapon speed a bit... there's nothing bad about sub-1.5 Auto Shots per se, a faster weapon speed even has some benefits like better IAotH uptime and more steady focus regeneration through GftT. Sure, slower weapons are generally better because of higher average damage, but the difference between two same DPS weapons with 2.8 and 2.9 speeds shouldn't be very big - if you can get a slower weapon, go ahead, but a 2.8 weapon (which with some exceptions, most notably Thori'dal and WSR currently is as 'fast' as you can get) is in no way 'gimped'.

Tithene · 10/25/08, 1:24 PM

Mako,
Armory is not showing, even today, my correct allocation of talent points...but your points will be considered carefully in future re-specs. My shot rotation confusion comes from some discussions w/ other hunters on my server...not usually the best source, I know, but I've been crunched for time...and most there are still talking "shot rotation". I will do my best to re-direct them to the sources (EJ) that know better.

To clarify yesterday's post, I am looking, very specifically, for info I have not seen in -this- thread yet. It appears this thread is to be stand-alone from the wotlk T&A hunter thread, so I think it would benefit not just me but others to know what kind of output we are seeing -as BM hunters- at this point in time on Recount, etc. My question, then, is what dps are BM hunters seeing w/ pet, w/o pet, raid-buffed and self-buffed. We are different than other hunters and being able to maximize ourselves in our chosen spec is the goal. Thank you all again for your hard work and solid analysis. I hope this post adds to this thread in a positive way.

Zeel · 10/25/08, 3:46 PM

Originally Posted by Saltyone

Presently I’m running with 50/11/0 with a Cat to take advantage of the massive DPS they’re doing until 3.0.3.

Could you please show me some numbers behind this? I did some testing with scorpid vs cat in BT after the patch
and the scorpid poison (at the moment) seems like a winner.

At Teron I had average ticks with Scorpid Poison 1172 dmg/sec:
Teron Gorefiend : Scorpid

Biggest ticks were ~2500 dmg/sec.
Also Scorpid seems to have a lot more survivability and that helps me keep my pet in combat
more often than I could with my cat.

After the next patch scorpid will probably be less valuable, but at the moment I find it hard to
justify the use of cat over scorpion.

Mattaos · 10/25/08, 3:54 PM

Originally Posted by Nakari

I think you overvalue the importance of weapon speed a bit... there's nothing bad about sub-1.5 Auto Shots per se, a faster weapon speed even has some benefits like better IAotH uptime and more steady focus regeneration through GftT. Sure, slower weapons are generally better because of higher average damage, but the difference between two same DPS weapons with 2.8 and 2.9 speeds shouldn't be very big - if you can get a slower weapon, go ahead, but a 2.8 weapon (which with some exceptions, most notably Thori'dal and WSR currently is as 'fast' as you can get) is in no way 'gimped'.

I hope I didn't come across as thinking that a 2.8 or 2.9 weapon speed is gimping anyone's DPS. The original poster was looking for solutions to squeeze more DPS out and switching out the Xbow for was just one of my solutions. Honestly, I do not have access to beta to test raid scenarios with the change to WF totem, which seems to put more value into haste going forward. I did test on the dummies some simple Steady Shot spam for 2 min with Rapid Fire at the 1 min mark (w/ Glyph of RF). What I found was unbuffed, no trinkets, no AotH (Quick Shots) that DPS between the Black Bow of the Betrayer and the Crossbow of Relentless Strikes was fairly even. Popping RF with the Black Bow dropped my speed from 2.10 to 1.42 and from 1.96 to 1.33 with the Xbow. The only difference (as expected) was the number of Auto Shots fired which was basically 4-5 more using the Xbow in a 2 min. period.

The average from 3 test runs I did using the Black Bow in the above mentioned scenario was 628 DPS w/ 75 Steadys (35.6% crit) and 60 Autos (32.7% crit.

The average from 3 more tests using the Xbow (same scenario, just swapped weapons) was 620 DPS w/ 75 Steadys (34.6% crit) and 65 Autos (33% crit).

I also plugged these weapons in the spreadsheet using the standard 70 raid buff option and my usual gear set-up.

Golden Bow of Quel'Thalas - 3397.41 DPS

Black Bow of the Betrayer - 3371.55 DPS

Bristleblitz Striker - 3353.26 DPS

Crossbow of Relentless Strikes - 3354.73 DPS

The spreadsheet I currently have (V75d) is not updated to reflect the WF totem change. The spreadsheet also does not factor in the current JoW bug, so the DPS numbers are being simulated thinking that I am having to drop into AotV, which all know is not necessary at the moment.

EDIT: I took the exact same spreadsheet set-up I used for the above DPS models, but I dialed up GtrBoW to Rank 5 and added Mana Spring Totem for even more Mp5 in an attempt to maybe simulate a little bit of what we are experiencing with JoW. Some interesting results came up...

Golden Bow of Quel'Thalas - 3429.05 DPS

Black Bow of the Betrayer - 3377.69 DPS

Bristleblitz Striker - 3384.36 DPS

Crossbow of Relentless Strikes - 3386.11 DPS

flimflam · 10/25/08, 7:41 PM

Am i the only one who wonders why a scorpid pet thats classified under the tenacity umbrella of pets is doing so much damage?

Tenacity - Pets - World of Warcraft

Look at that list of pets, would you take any to a raid for maximizing damage? It doesnt make any sense to me.

I wonder how exotics will stack up after the 10% boost. Has that gone live in beta yet?

About the bow speed/dmg. Your tests seem to say, check weapon DPS and stats instead of weapon speed/damage. Except for the broken jow.. its throwing things out the window!

HellyardsOwn · 10/26/08, 3:26 AM

something I've been experimenting with and haven't gotten enough results to decide either way, is 2 ap trinkets (empty direbrew mug and bloodlust brooch atm) vs 1 ap and 1 other (bloodlust and hourglass-bad trinket luck).

the reason being, with 3/3 longevity (and soon the BW glyph) it seems worthwhile to put kill command, both trinkets, and BW in one macro, slam it, then after BW cooldown, slam it again, since with 1 ap trinket you wont have trinket cooled by the time BW is up, and waiting for trinket takes out the value of longevity as far as BW goes anyways.

any thoughts? has anyone been doing some testing or thought of this, I'll post results when I find them (or re-test and post new ones)
idea:

0-use BW, Trinket1, Kill Command triggered
20s-Trinket2 off shared CD
60s-Kill Command off CD
80s-BW off CD, use BW, Trinket2, Kill Command
120s-Trinket1 off CD
140s-Kill Command off CD
160s-BW off CD, use BW, Trinket1, Kill Command

Daggy · 10/26/08, 10:06 AM

I was wondering if you guys had scorpid poison and claw on auto cast, or just scorpid poison?
Or perhaps you use a macro?
I notice that with claw and posion on auto cast, the poison tends to drop off after a while.

Derchizul · 10/26/08, 12:16 PM

Originally Posted by Daggy

I was wondering if you guys had scorpid poison and claw on auto cast, or just scorpid poison?
Or perhaps you use a macro?
I notice that with claw and posion on auto cast, the poison tends to drop off after a while.

It really depends on your crit chance, but in any case, using claw on auto with scorpid makes you loose the poison tick if you got a noncrit streak. you could then drop the use of claw and save the point in gftt as your scorpid has enough focus regen on its own to maintain poison without using claw, i havent tested, but you might even go 1/2 in beastial discipline without claw. In any case, its not the bosskills that takes up the most time in instances atm, its all the trash clearing and for that a cat or something similiar does way more dps then the scorpid thats relies on 5stack poison to do decent dps.

Mattaos · 10/26/08, 1:40 PM

Originally Posted by HellyardsOwn

something I've been experimenting with and haven't gotten enough results to decide either way, is 2 ap trinkets (empty direbrew mug and bloodlust brooch atm) vs 1 ap and 1 other (bloodlust and hourglass-bad trinket luck).

the reason being, with 3/3 longevity (and soon the BW glyph) it seems worthwhile to put kill command, both trinkets, and BW in one macro, slam it, then after BW cooldown, slam it again, since with 1 ap trinket you wont have trinket cooled by the time BW is up, and waiting for trinket takes out the value of longevity as far as BW goes anyways.

any thoughts? has anyone been doing some testing or thought of this, I'll post results when I find them (or re-test and post new ones)
idea:

0-use BW, Trinket1, Kill Command triggered
20s-Trinket2 off shared CD
60s-Kill Command off CD
80s-BW off CD, use BW, Trinket2, Kill Command
120s-Trinket1 off CD
140s-Kill Command off CD
160s-BW off CD, use BW, Trinket1, Kill Command

Those AP trinkets share the exact same CD (2 min), unless something has changed.

Devastor · 10/26/08, 2:03 PM

Originally Posted by Mattaos

Those AP trinkets share the exact same CD (2 min), unless something has changed.

yes, thats his point, saving Trinket2 for the second BW

On the one hand, losing DPS for not using both Trinkets every CD, but gaining again by combining each trinket with its own BW-phase

Devastor · 10/26/08, 2:07 PM

one question on my own: i'm currently not at home, so can't test it.
Pets gain AP if i use my Trinket. But: is this "AP transfer" instant or does it "lag" behind a little (taking time to update pet's stats)

would be interesting to know if you use a macro for /use 13 /cast Kill Command - as the first KC-hit might eventually not get the AP bonus.

I know, silly question, but it just came up my mind

Ulfang · 10/26/08, 3:49 PM

Originally Posted by Tithene

To clarify yesterday's post, I am looking, very specifically, for info I have not seen in -this- thread yet. It appears this thread is to be stand-alone from the wotlk T&A hunter thread, so I think it would benefit not just me but others to know what kind of output we are seeing -as BM hunters- at this point in time on Recount, etc. My question, then, is what dps are BM hunters seeing w/ pet, w/o pet, raid-buffed and self-buffed. We are different than other hunters and being able to maximize ourselves in our chosen spec is the goal. Thank you all again for your hard work and solid analysis. I hope this post adds to this thread in a positive way.

I think you might be missing the point, all these numbers you are asking for are dependant on each different players individual gear, exact spec, and pet not to mention raid make-up and buffs. It would be of no help to anyone for even a dozen different players to post their latest WWS results. I imagine you would get a spread of about 1800-3000 dps, if you are looking for what most everyone is doing right now as far as specs and shot macros, it is in Mattaos' opening post.

HellyardsOwn · 10/26/08, 4:24 PM

@mattaos

the trinkets have a "shared cooldown" of 20 seconds. they don't give one another a full 2 minute cooldown. this was true since before the patch, I've seen other classes experiment with using them one after the other (the shared cooldown finishes after 20 seconds, same length of the buff) to give a 40 second ap gain vs. 20 sec. this is what gave me the idea.

jasonbourne · 10/26/08, 6:24 PM

I've been a fan of this site and I appreciate all the work everyone puts into the theorycrafting and the constructive feedback. My question centers on pet damage. I've been using the new WoLK spreadsheet to make decisions on my gear, talent point distribution, etc. After comparing my pet's theoretical DPS to my pet's WWS DPS, there is a significant difference between theoretical damage and actual reported damage on the downside. e.g. the WoLK spreadsheet estimates that I should be getting around 716 dps from my pet (lightly raid buffed), while WWS is saying that I'm getting somewhere in the neighborhood of 410 - 430 dps over the last four or five raids (Hyjal, BT, ZA). This represents about a 40% difference, which I cannot explain. I've tried to configure the spreadsheet to model the actual raiding environment as closely as possible. Has anyone else run into this? Is there something that I'm not understanding or configuring in the spreadsheet correctly?

My spec is 51/10 and I'm running with a Devisaur, and a cat alternately. Thanks for your help.

thx10050 · 10/26/08, 7:26 PM

Fixed: Tried once more tonight with Scorpid Poison on auto-cast, seemed to be working fine. I don't know why it was acting up before even while on auto-cast, but I think it's okay now.

Still not sure whether to roll with the Scorpid or Cat though...

Tithene · 10/27/08, 2:22 AM

Wow Web Stats

As promised. Had rake, claw, dash clicked on autocast in pet tab. Also Auto Attack/Auto Shot and Stop Auto Attack buttons on interface were checked on. Used macros as below:
#showtooltip Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast Steady Shot
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Rabid
/cast [target=pettarget,exists] Rake
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

#showtooltip Bestial Wrath
/cast Bestial Wrath
/use Berserker's Call
/use Bloodlust Brooch
/cast Kill command
/cast !Auto Shot

Had one guy telling me I was doing 2800dps while my Recount showed only around 1400dps. I used Viper sting at times, played w/ volley since fellow hunter Charlymurphy said it was fun (and it was on trash). If you do not have time for in depth analyses of this, no worries. I, however, said I'd post this data, so here is.

Saltyone · 10/27/08, 3:14 AM

Originally Posted by Zeel

Could you please show me some numbers behind this? I did some testing with scorpid vs cat in BT after the patch
and the scorpid poison (at the moment) seems like a winner.

At Teron I had average ticks with Scorpid Poison 1172 dmg/sec:
Teron Gorefiend : Scorpid

Biggest ticks were ~2500 dmg/sec.
Also Scorpid seems to have a lot more survivability and that helps me keep my pet in combat
more often than I could with my cat.

After the next patch scorpid will probably be less valuable, but at the moment I find it hard to
justify the use of cat over scorpion.

Justification is moot atm, with the nerf coming next patch and the suspicions that the poison applied is not the appropriate one for LV70. The scorpid is a tenacity pet, and I prefer to have a ferocity tree pet anyways. The pre-requisite to Rabid is 75% reduction from indirect AoE damage, and Bloodthirsty as well as Imp. Leader of the Pack keep my pet healed well enough in combat. I don't believe the damage numbers we're seeing is what is intended so I'll wait until the patch to see if scorpids remain a massive leader.

Luinwen · 10/27/08, 5:08 AM

I am currently loosing some hit because of changes I made to my gear. It sums up to approximately 30 hit so my first thought was to change my scope to the Biznicks 247x128 Accurascope. The tooltip says "ranged hit" - now I am wondering: will that hit transfer to my pet? (My guess is no.)
Has anyone been able to test that?

Drrakkainen · 10/27/08, 6:05 AM

what is your average Steady Shot to Auto Shot ratio during raid? I've been checking our last raid and for 600 steady shots I have sth like 500 autoshots, I'm wondering if auto/steady is really unlinked now, on quartz it looked like auto was still clipped by steady
example of some of our happy free wipes

HERE

Morwakh · 10/27/08, 9:53 AM

Originally Posted by Lactose

Hit Rating on gear is transferred 1:1 to the pet.
The hit chance gain from Focused Aim talent also affects pet hit chance.

I cant find any source for this statement, could anyone post a lik or something

Griffen · 10/27/08, 10:05 AM

Originally Posted by Morwakh

I cant find any source for this statement, could anyone post a lik or something

You just quoted the best source you could have. It's been tested and reported by several.
I don't believe it has been officially confirmed other than being said that +hit of hunters and warlocks should now also apply to pets.

Edit: I found a post here that confirms that Focused Aim affects pet +hit
http://elitistjerks.com/933016-post3958.html

There should be a few other confirmations on pets getting their masters hit rating in that thread. Keep in mind that even with max hit rating pets will still suffer from dodges and parries (which is why we get expertise on animal handler instead of +pet hit).

Morwakh · 10/27/08, 11:27 AM

Thank you for the link !

zork · 10/27/08, 12:16 PM

Animal Handler will increase pets expertise in WotLK, thus putting points into it does make sense.

Animal Handler - Spell - World of Warcraft