Kinetics

One thing I noticed with your build is that it has Wolverine Bite. Would it actually make more sense to be slightly under the hit cap so this would proc more often? Just a thought, but if your hit cap is 7.95, your pet will only get the 7% hit chance. So the pet will miss quite frequently then, so wouldn't Wolverine Bite proc more often? Looks like a good solid build for a RoR type of build though.

Edited for grammar.

Your answer is in there, just stare down the barrel.

 

• Scotch

Doubt it. If I'm reading the tooltips correctly WB procs after dodges, not misses, so increasing the number of misses by your pet won't increase the number of WB procs. Secondly, being sub-hit capped will just gimp your pet's damage because now every other attack is missing more often; somehow I doubt the increased WB procs (if it worked that way) would outweigh the lost auto/special damage from being below hit cap.

If you want to increase dodges, take points out of animal handler. In the grand scheme of things this is still both a poor idea and likely inferior dps to a ferocity pet.

<Bryne|work>: Scotch is one of the least terrible hunters I have ever had the extreme displeasure to raid with.

 

Nooska

Just to check in the spread sheet.

6 minute fight, changing to Chimera from wolf; pet dps delta: -619; total dps delta: -496
10 minute fight, changing to Chimera from wolf; pet dps delta: -420 total dps delta: -490

So overall you lose more personal dps than you gain from extending the fight and using RoR - with my gear and with 2 data points.

 

halabar

Well, I'd expect that in our usual optimal max-buff spreadsheet-fu. But I wonder about when we are in a 10-man, (or even a 5-man) where there is little or no replenishment available to us. (And we'd probably want points in our own mana recovery as well). Any chance RoR would be worth it then?

There should be enough folks in 25-mans with replenishment that an RoR build isn't worth looking at.

I'm headed back to BM as soon as this patch hits, so I'm looking at options for pets and builds. I'm hoping there's at least one aspect of the game where cunning pets are worth it (other than PVP).

 

Koralath

Several of the points in this build seem odd to me. I've seen the logic for the 1/3 Imp AotM spelled out in this thread.

What was the logic stream for the 2/2 Spirit Bond and 3/5 Frenzy over the (what I've seen as conventional) 1/2 Imp Mend Pet and 4/5 Frenzy.

Also, I've seen a lot of runs with 1/3 Cobra Strikes coupled with 4/5 Mortal Shots. Again, I'd be curious to see how those choices play out in the spreadsheets.

 

Esoth

Spreadsheet shows me with about 99% Frenzy uptime as long as I have 3/3 Cobra Strikes.

The Spirit Bond vs. Improved Mend Pet issue is more situational, but more increased healing received is always nice. The mana reduction with imp mend pet is fairly small for an ability that doesn't cost much and is used infrequently anyway - it's more about the dispel. The dispel coming from a mend is very risky; if it's something that needs to be dispelled right away, a proc chance is not going to cut it. You'll need an actual dispeller or at least a totem tick.

 

Dch48

Since I never do any kiting, putting a point in monkey is useless. My guild never has hunters kite, not even on Gluth. We have either DK's or Pallys do it. I hate kiting and I don't think I've done it since Drakkisath way back when. I also would rather have points in improved mend over spirit bond. The bloodthirsty talent has pretty much made spirit bond obsolete in my opinion. I also run with 5/5 mortal shots, 3/3 cobra strikes and 3/3 improved arcane with no points in survival at all. I don't want to have to keep switching tracking which I know I will often forget to do therefore rendering the points useless. They would also be semi-useless in groups of mobs made up of different types.

 

TrevvyTrev

The increased healing from Spirit Bond applies to the hunter too, which makes raid healing more effective on you. That's another reason people take it. Improved tracking doesn't require you to switch tracking. You can set it to one type (say, giants) and it will give you the bonus against any type of mob that you CAN track, even if you aren't actually tracking it. It is fine in groups of multiple mobs. The only time it underperforms is against non trackable mobs like mechanicals and the ones without a listed type. However, it outperforms mortal shots on serpent sting and auto shot, neither of which is affected by mortal shots. And auto shot is the bulk of BM hunter shot damage so it can't be ignored.

Imp. Monkey isn't limited to kiting only. It's about which actually increases survivability more -- a 1% health increase or a 2% dodge increase. The health increase probably doesn't make much difference in a raid healing scenario, and the dodge may make a difference when you get aggro from some add that spawns. Neither choice is very compelling for hunters, so leaving it a personal preference is a pretty good place to take the subject.

 

Sepultura

51-13-7 will be my 1st test build... I must say I cant understand some of Rosamond choices on his build especialy about the mortal shots. U are loosing almost 12% crit damage to have BW 20% faster? I see damage decresing there, not the other way around...
About spirit bound, we just get it because we dont have nothing better to choose to go up the tree, u cant loose dps to choose this talent, doesnt make sense in normal raiding.

 

Mattaos

As Scotch touched on, misses do NOT equal dodges & parries. Capping hit for transference to the pet is still smart. Expertise (as we know) reduces dodge and parry chance, but I still do not feel taking points out of Animal Handler would be warranted either. Taking 2/2 AH for the 10 Expertise reduces dodge/parry chance by 2.5%, which is still only about half the dodge chance from behind a mob. There really would not be any great advantage to reduce expertise just to try and proc WB more. The extra dodges/parries would also effect other abilities if WB was on CD or any available focus was used on another ability.

Besides, if it is pure DPS you are looking for a Cunning pet is not the route you want to take.

 

TrevvyTrev

Longevity lowers the cooldown on pet specials, including family specials like rake and monstrous bite, and even tree specials like Call of the Wild and Rabid. These add up.

As for mortal Shots, it's not a loss of 12% crit damage, but the crit BONUS is lower by comparison. At 2/5 Mortal Shots a crit hits for 212% damage. At 4/5 it is 224%. A 1000 damage shot is 2120 and 2240, respectively. The 2/5 Mortal Shots crit is only 5.4% lower than the 4/5 one.

But the reason people don't always max mortal shots is because mortal shots doesn't apply to most of the damage that BM hunters do. It doesn't apply to pet damage (which is why longevity can be a better option) and it doesn't apply to auto shot or serpent sting. It only is a factor on crit damage (which is a factor of crit rate, naturally), whereas some other talents increase certain damage all the time.

If people bothered to actually test out different builds in the spreadsheet, then they might understand why people make certain choices. There is a lot of math that the spreadsheet does for you, and sometimes a talent can be better than another at one level of gear or buffs and worse at the next. It's one thing to theorycraft the numbers yourself and seek clarification when the results show something you didn't expect, but it's another to just ignore several pages of math and analysis and just post off the cuff.

The spreadsheet shows Rosa's posted build as more dps than yours on every character that I have imported into it, including yours.

 

Kinetics

According to the patch notes "Improved Aspect of the Hawk now has a new spell effect."

Does anyone have the slightest idea of what this new spell effect is? I have yet to go onto the PTR to check.

Your answer is in there, just stare down the barrel.

 

Shandara

I believe this meant a new graphics effect, but I can't really say I've noticed a difference on the PTR yet.

WotLK Hunter DPS Spreadsheet

 

Mikari

Rapid Fire seems to have a new graphic effect when used so I think they made a mistake.

 

Brughe

This is very similar to what I used as BM pre- (and briefly post-) nerf. It has another variant that I have not seen mentioned in this thread. If it has been, I apologize.

With my gear and using Shandara's pre-loaded 25-man raid buffs, I've found that the spreadsheet can produce an acceptable, and sometimes even advantageous, variant in the form of a 54/11/6 spec: You shove one of those points in Survival Instincts over to Invigoration. I suppose this depends on what level of mana regen your raid can provide. Your mileage may vary.

 

Mikari

I just ran a 54/11/6 build through simcraft comparing against a 53/13/05 and 53/11/07 I get the following results.

54/11/6 - 6115 DPS
53/13/5 - 6103 DPS
53/11/7 - 6086 DPS

I wonder who we contact to get the higher dps spec included.

[Edit]

Sorry I tried the wrong spec Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft gives 6128 DPS.

 

Rosamonde

What raid composition are you using where a point in Invigoration is better than Survival Instincts? My guild runs with a ret pally and I can hardly get my mana below 70% unless he dies, so I have not found it useful personally.

Cave canum...

Florimel (hunter) / Argent Dawn
Rosamonde (mage) / Argent Dawn
Lisieau (priest) / Argent Dawn

 

Mikari

I just edited the Hunter BM file used for SampleOutputPTR - simulationcraft - Google Code and changed the spec, it does take into account JoW, though it is over a 5 min duration which most current boss fights aren't so I'm wondering if that's what makes the difference.

 

Rosamonde

The idea with the raiding spec section in the original post wasn't to come up with a "cookie cutter" spec, but to show a base spec with variables that each hunter would choose from to best fit his/her individual gear and raid situation. I have both 2/2 Survival Instincts and 4/5 Mortal Shots listed as options -- the spreadsheet DPS for taking either is so close that for many it is a matter of personal preference.

I debated with myself over whether to include points in Invigoration as another option. In the end I did not include it for several reasons: a) I never have any mana problems in a full raid buff situation; b) I had not seen any evidence that Invigoration provided enough mana to make it worth the points, either from personal experience, spreadsheet modeling, or testing.

Now that 3.1 is being released, we can see for ourselves whether the changes to Judgment of Wisdom and mana regen in general are going to put us into mana conservation mode, and if they do, whether having Invigoration will make the difference. Since Mikari's Simcraft numbers show Invigoration making a difference, I'll add that as an option to the first post. My understanding of Simcraft is that DPS numbers can vary each time you run it, to simulate the RNG in a given fight, as opposed to the spreadsheet, which tries to even out the RNG through averaging. Therefore, given the very close margin between using Invigoration VS Mortal Shots in the Simcraft results Mikari posted, I don't think we can declare Invigoration as the top DPS Talent over either Mortal Shots or Survival Instincts at this point -- but it does look like a viable option for those with a mana shortage.

Cave canum...

Florimel (hunter) / Argent Dawn
Rosamonde (mage) / Argent Dawn
Lisieau (priest) / Argent Dawn

 

Nooska

On invigoration:

I agree fully with Rosamonde on its use in a fully buffed 25 man environment, it isn't needed.

I did run with it for a while as our mana regen was uncertain from raid to raid apart from replenishment - with only 2 paladins in the raid group JoW was no certainty, and neither was a BoW in its stead as BoK would be the first choice for dps (BoW doesn't seem to regenerate enough to be worthwhile)

To return to invigorations, 2/2 gives you back about 100 mana every time your pet crits; My pet has a (spreadsheet calculations) 53,79% chance to crit overall (including talents).
My pet uses a special every 1,31 seconds leading to 1 proc every 2,43 seconds on average.
My pets special rate and crit chance should be the same as most BM hunters as its based on:
Base agi for pet, additive buffs, multiplicative buffs, Spider's Bite (pet talent), Ferocity (hunter talent) and buffs (LotP, Rampage).

All this leads to 57,65 mps from 2/2 invigoration when the pet has BoK, agi buff (soe totem, horn of winter) and Rampage/LotP.
Thats 86,48 mana per gcd or 288,25 mp5 - with AS/SS mana cost of 252 thats more than 1 extra shot per 5 seconds from invigoration - so in mana starved environments its actually pretty good. And 1/2 is equally feasible if your mana starvations is less but you still need to viper.
The actual dps gain from invigoration depends on how severe your mana regen problem is in your raid environment.

 

Holas

I'm wondering if 5/5 mortal shots in a spec like this will become a greater dps increase at higer crit levels already with my current gear the diffrence between 5/5 mortal shots and going into the Survival tree is only ~40dps diffrence and already going 4/5 mortal shots and ignoreing survival instincts seems to net a small dps increase.

all comparisons were done with "40.36% crit"

 

Stark92

now that 3.1 has acutally been released does anyone have a wws report or some sort of report to show how their dps actually worked out in a 25 man raid as a bm hunter? I personally am playing marks as of now, but am thinking about trying to find a viable bm spec. lemme know! thanks.

 

Nooska

I have wws from the last 2 weeks, and I will be maintining wws parses of the ulduar fights we will be having this week as well.

 

Rosamonde

Taking 5/5 Mortal Shots and 4/5 Imp Tracking in my current gear results in a loss of 7 dps, this with 38.97% crit and 7422 AP raid buffed. If I give myself ~5% more crit (44.42%), it is a loss of 5 dps, and if ~10% more (49.96%). it is a 3 dps loss.

This is only a rough comparison, since stacking more crit at current gear levels would cause AP to go down, while gaining crit through large gear upgrades would cause AP to go up. All I can say is try it out for yourself from time to time and see if it is an increase with the gear you have.

PS I will post up some WWS from Ulduar or 3.1 Naxx once I have some available.

Cave canum...

Florimel (hunter) / Argent Dawn
Rosamonde (mage) / Argent Dawn
Lisieau (priest) / Argent Dawn

 

Stark92

do you have a link or a ss that i could see that?