Raiding with Beast Mastery in 3.3.3 and beyond - Page 19

Criven · 06/25/09, 10:11 AM

Originally Posted by Juuni

Well back in tbc high end raiding with bm was kind of difficult on some fights regarding pet survivability. Now only the damage output need to be higher.
The bonus on t9 seems to favor bm builds but still need to know if we can drop gftt ..

Focus out max=50 over 6 seconds (4x25*.5 for focus dump & set discount)
Focus in =60 over 6 seconds (5x2x6 for BD 2 points)

Yes. GftT is not necessary with the set discount

zeroKFE · 06/25/09, 12:37 PM

Originally Posted by TrevvyTrev

He's not getting Improved Cower for the threat, he's getting it for the damage reduction. Tank threat has nothing to do with it -- in fact I use Improved Cower most often in situations where threat is meaningless, like PvP. The idea is that if you pet spams Cower, then it will take even less damage during the raid, at the cost of one GCD every 20 seconds or whatever it is based on Longevity.

Yeah, I understand what the talent does. The point I was trying to make (and clearly did so poorly

) is that the damage reduction from Improved Cower isn't terribly meaningful, at least when specced BM and raiding Ulduar.

As for maxxing bloodthirsty, the second point doesn't increase the value of the heal, only the chance that it triggers. Since it refreshes itself often even at one point, 2/2 usually is unnecessary unless you are building toward Heart of the Phoenix.

Understood here as well. Essentially, though, you have a floater point to work with that either goes into stamina/damage mitigation, boar's speed, bloodthirsty, or charge. Of the four options, I find the stamina/damage mitigation talents to be the least compelling choice since in Ulduar I find my pet only dies from attacks where mitigation would have no appreciable effect. I choose to put a second point into bloodthirsty because if my pet DOES die, the faster he can get a bloodthristy proc after being revived, the faster he is back to dealing full damage, and more frequent procs mean a lower likelihood that I have to spend a GCD casting mend pet. Honestly, though, charge or boar's speed may be more compelling still if you are content with the proc rate of 1/2 in bloodthirsty.

TrevvyTrev · 06/25/09, 1:52 PM

Originally Posted by zeroKFE

Honestly, though, charge or boar's speed may be more compelling still if you are content with the proc rate of 1/2 in bloodthirsty.

This is the point I was trying to make, too. Bloodthirsty is a fine talent, but it's like GffT in that the second point doesn't do nearly as much as the first one. 2/2 just means it refreshes more often, but it still has a very high uptime with a single point. I'm sure the uptime is higher when maxxed, but when actually playing with them both I haven't been able to notice one.

My pets have dash, which is almost always up when needed, and when it isn't up they have the speed boost from Kindred Spirits. I usually drop the extra point in Charge. It technically adds dps (although not very much) and it gets the pet to target faster.

Hagen · 06/29/09, 6:17 AM

Originally Posted by TrevvyTrev

[...]
My pets have dash, which is almost always up when needed, and when it isn't up they have the speed boost from Kindred Spirits. I usually drop the extra point in Charge. It technically adds dps (although not very much) and it gets the pet to target faster.

I don't play BM at the moment, but I prefer Boar's Speed over the alternatives, because the speed increases the time your pet can do damage (faster at the mob), it helps it avoid damage (faster out of AoE), in contrast to charge it's always active and doesn't annoy your tanks by stunning a mob.

TrevvyTrev · 06/29/09, 11:59 AM

Originally Posted by Hagen

I don't play BM at the moment, but I prefer Boar's Speed over the alternatives, because the speed increases the time your pet can do damage (faster at the mob), it helps it avoid damage (faster out of AoE), in contrast to charge it's always active and doesn't annoy your tanks by stunning a mob.

The pet build we're talking about includes Dash. The question thus isn't about the benefit of a speed boost, but which speed boost (Charge or Boar's Speed) has less overlap with Dash. BM pets typically have enough focus to Dash out of AoE if really needed, and BM pets have a passive 10% speed boost already from Kindred Spirits. Charge is even faster to the mob than Boar's Speed is, and it doesn't annoy tanks because it doesn't stun. It roots for one second, and just about every raid mob is immune to it. If Charge is on CD, Dash is almost always up because there is only a small window between the duration and the CD when you're BM specced. So I gave charge the (slight) edge by virtue of the AP boost and the fact that it serves a different purpose than Dash does, so it's less redundant.

Lupius · 07/02/09, 3:12 PM

Originally Posted by zeroKFE

What I don't understand is why they don't add it to Animal Handler. The addition of pet expertise being determined by the hunter's hit rating now makes that talent only useful for PvP anyway

My biggest question in regards to the change in expertise is, with 3/3 Focused Aim, does your pet get max expertise if you have 5% hit from gear? I hope Blizzard didn't neglect this in their equations.

And exactly how much is max expertise? Is it maxed for attacking from in front or behind?

Namarus · 07/02/09, 3:41 PM

Originally Posted by Hagen

I don't play BM at the moment, but I prefer Boar's Speed over the alternatives, because the speed increases the time your pet can do damage (faster at the mob), it helps it avoid damage (faster out of AoE), in contrast to charge it's always active and doesn't annoy your tanks by stunning a mob.

Charge doesn't stun.

TrevvyTrev · 07/02/09, 3:42 PM

Originally Posted by Lupius

And exactly how much is max expertise? Is it maxed for attacking from in front or behind?

My testing on the PTR against the training dummies suggests that it is maxxed for attacking from behind (i.e., dodge) but not from the front (i.e., parry). When my pet was out of position, it got parried a few times, but it didn't get dodged at all once it successfully maneuvered behind the target.

Tsook · 07/02/09, 4:27 PM

Which means that the expertise on Animal Handler can be considered a pet tanking boost, just as the dodge on Cobra Reflexes is, since that's the only time that parries are relevant for pets. So, not a raid dps talent any more, but has its place just as CR does (mostly soloing old content).

arlen · 07/02/09, 5:11 PM

Originally Posted by Namarus

Charge doesn't stun.

It immobilizes them for 1 sec though, Charge - Spell - World of Warcraft

TrevvyTrev · 07/02/09, 5:51 PM

Originally Posted by arlen

It immobilizes them for 1 sec though, Charge - Spell - World of Warcraft

It almost never works on raid mobs. I only say "almost" because I can't say for sure that it won't ever work, but I have never seen it work myself. This thread is "raiding as beast mastery" and the context is that using charge will annoy tanks during raids because of positioning. That is not a valid concern, because during any raid encounter where the tank actually cares about positioning, using charge won't have any effect on that.

Hagen · 07/02/09, 6:03 PM

Though the point was made quite clear in TrevvyTrevs post from a few days ago (You're right, Charge seems to be the better choice.), I had tank complain a while back about warlock's Felguard's which stunned some mobs he was trying to taunt and pull together (I think it was at Razorscale) and I worried that Charge might have the same annoying effect.

Lupius · 07/03/09, 1:11 PM

As a follow up to the discussion on page 1, wouldn't it be a good choice to include /cast Aspect of the Beast into the Bestial Wrath macro and manually switching back to Hawk when it's over?

TrevvyTrev · 07/03/09, 4:11 PM

Originally Posted by Lupius

As a follow up to the discussion on page 1, wouldn't it be a good choice to include /cast Aspect of the Beast into the Bestial Wrath macro and manually switching back to Hawk when it's over?

The hunter spreadsheet can give an exact answer for a particular spec and gear level, because it has an option to switch to AotB during Wrath on the "Settings" tab, but the general answer is no. Short answers why:

1. Hunter damage is boosted during TBW also, so the effects of 390 AP (modified by 10% damage) are lost. BM hunters still do more damage with shots than they do with the pet, unless something is way off about their rotation or uptime.

2. The melee AP bonus to the pet is offset in part by the lost AP from scaling. Using ~24% AP scaling to the pet (assuming Wild Hunt, that number is from memory so it may be slightly off), simply not using Dragonhawk is roughly a 94 AP loss. This means your pet's first 940 AP doesn't really count -- it takes 940 AP for the extra 10% bonus from AotB to equal the amount lost from losing Dragonhawk. It's only AP above that which makes a difference, and even that is at 10%.

Kadaq · 07/04/09, 2:37 AM

I put a point into my pets charge instead of 2/2 into bloodthirsty and just leave it at 1/2 b/c of alot of the new fights their is target changing, knockbacks and i never have a problem with my pet dying.