Raiding with Beast Mastery in 3.3.3 and beyond - Page 2

TrevvyTrev · 04/06/09, 5:13 PM

Originally Posted by Nooska

@ TrevvyTrev

No I don't have IAotH in my build. Seeing as AotB outperforms AotH even if I switch the talent points I don't see it as useful talentpoints at all. I like my autoshot and I usually pop rapidfire with bloodlust and BW to squeeze out as many autoshots during the increase of BW for this reason (this might change with the Possed strength glyph if it indeed is as powerful (though situational) as my napkin math suggests).
So I've opted for more survivabilty which was good in the early stages - I have considered speccing out of it, but IAotH just doesn't seem to be worth it despite great autoshots - I haven't trie d a spreadsheet with the glyph though (that could definately make it worth more).

Indeed lacking trinket procs might lower dps, but since you gain more from them than your pet (when ap, nothing for arp) I am not sure its correct that you would lose dps from them not proccing.

@ My ranking, it wasn't truly meant as a ranking, and I would agree that SrS glyph should be moved up, but my thoughts are that SrS/AotB is a matter of taste - provided AotB is being used (if not, SrS wins at any time since a 20% benefit to a 0 use talent is still 0

)

You might want to double check your spreadsheet calculations. I loaded your gear (assumed Mammoth Cutters) and spec (57/14, no IAotH) into v86c, and used a Core Hound with the new "dps spec" (no HotP, 2/2 Wild hunt and Shark attack). I entered the shot priority you specified (Kill/Arc/Serp/Steady) except preceded by BW/Rapid Fire. I switched glyphs around and got the following results with level 80 raid buffs:

5793.73 dps in Dragonhawk, with Steady/BW/Serp glyphs
5832.05 dps in Beast, with Steady/BW/Serp glyphs
5837.82 dps in Beast, with Steady/BW/AotB glyphs

So far that is consistent with what you said earlier. Then I switched Endurance Training for IAotH:

5869.15 dps in Dragonhawk, with Steady/BW/AotB glyphs. This is higher dps even though now we're getting nothing from the AotB glyph.
5908.84 dps in Dragonhawk, with Steady/BW/Serp glyphs.
5920.23 dps in Dragonhawk, with Steady/BW/Hawk glyphs. So under the latest spreadsheet, even you get the most dps by using IAotH and glyphing for it.

This trend continues even if you use the 53/11/7 build with your gear. DPS goes up in all cases, but the highest still is with the BW/Steady/Hawk glyphs, which tops out at 6069.66. The dps for all of these could go up with multi-shot in your rotations, but I didn't check that.

As for my proc point, that wasn't about trinkets specifically, but anything that uses a per-hit mechanic instead of PPM, like Go For the Throat and well, IAotH. The latter has a flat chance to trigger from any auto shot, so quick shots has the added effect of increasing the chance that it will refresh itself.

Finally, my point about your ranking wasn't about the order, so much as you said that "current wisdom" suggests that those four glyphs are the highest dps, yet you left off a glyph (Hawk) that according to current wisdom does more dps than half the ones you listed. So either the list needed five entries, or if you specifically only wanted to list the 'top four' then Beast needs to be replaced with Hawk. EDIT: Actually I even show the Kill Shot Glyph as ahead of the Beast Glyph when I plug it in under the conditions above. So you'd need six entries if you want to include the Beast glyph.

Rosamonde · 04/06/09, 7:48 PM

Spreadsheet modeling of pets using v86c:

Using my own current gear and planned 3.1 spec, I compared the various Ferocity pets. I used a total of hunter/pet dps since some of the pets affect the hunter's dps as well. Most of them did in the neighborhood of 2600-2900 dps themselves..

6145 Devilsaur
6129 Wolf
6119 Raptor
6019 Core hound
6016 Spirit Beast
6012 Moth
5984 Wasp
5962 Cat
5931 Silithid
5918 Carrion Bird
5887 Tallstrider
5847 Hyena

Cunning pets are in the 2200-2300 dps range, so they aren't likely to find their way into a raid unless one of their talents is needed in special circumstances. Tenacity pets are in the 2100-2200 dps range, except for worms which are around 2500 dps.

Kinetics · 04/06/09, 11:17 PM

Originally Posted by Rosamonde

Spreadsheet modeling of pets using v86e:

Using my own current gear and planned 3.1 spec, I compared the various Ferocity pets. I used a total of hunter/pet dps since some of the pets affect the hunter's dps as well. Most of them did in the neighborhood of 2600-2900 dps themselves..

6145 Devilsaur

I still honestly think Devilsaur will pull more than that in 3.1 especially if they fix the hitbox. Although I'm currently maxed for hit and my pet still manages to miss. It only happens with my Devilsaur which is quite depressing because I know he can easily pull more DPS if he wasn't missing.

Bengomore · 04/07/09, 1:30 AM

@Hellusion
Yes, Devilsaur is an attractive choice if they fix ALL the hitbox issues. That being said, as I said earlier, I have not heard that they worked on that at all. Can anyone give testament to whether Devilsaurs are still seriously bugged on the PTR? Again, I think that this discussion will best be serviced by simply going into a raid and observing, post 3.1.

@Rosamonde
I'm very suprised that the wolf was second to the Devilsaur. I was anticipating the wolf being a lot lower on that ranking with the changes to furious howl. I wonder if the spreadsheet hasn't been updated quite accurately to reflect those changes. Also as a buffing class of a pet, it is supposed to do less damage than a pet who doesn't buff, but I suppose the spreadsheet is telling you that with your gear and spec the AP is providing a greater benefeit to your overall DPS than a pet that does more damage.

dssurge · 04/07/09, 2:31 AM

The Wolf also receives FH, which is why it does comparable damage.

It's actually kind of silly that exotic pets are below any non-exotics, but that said, as long as any non-exotic pet is a viable choice, this will remain a viable secondary (or primary) spec if/until the remove the obnoxious CD from the new Call Stabled Pet spell.

Rosamonde · 04/07/09, 2:54 AM

When I saw the changes to Furious Howl, I expected the wolf to be a good pet, at least until we get a lot of T8 gear -- the changes buffed its damage considerably as it was intended to do. It would have been a good pet before if the buff stacked with other raid buffs, which it does now, plus it was increased since it doesn't affect anyone besides the hunter and wolf. I am not sure why you are surprised that the changes will make it better than it is now -- unless I am misunderstanding your comments.

The wolf itself does not do more damage than the devilsaur, but including the buff to the hunter it is an overall increase over other pets and a close second to the devilsaur. I suppose it is true that the hunter's own stats have an effect on how good a wolf looks, in the sense that because it is a flat AP increase rather than a percent, having relatively low AP means that the wolf's buff represents a larger percent increase in AP than it would for someone with higher AP. I do think a moth will look better at (much) higher AP levels because of its percent-based buff (to itself only). All I can advise is to try it yourself in the spreadsheet and see how it works for you.

As to whether the spreadsheet models wolves correctly, I am afraid I do not have the know-how to check on it, but you could make a post in the spreadsheet thread if you truly think that is the case.

daragh · 04/07/09, 5:22 AM

It is a pity to see the spirit beast perform badly on the ptr tests... they might have fixed the spell issue bug but the miss% of the spirit beast is still high which in turn causes a drop in DPS. This pet was never meant to be THE DPS pet and thats normal cause I'd hate to see it become the new Humar. However it is an under performing exotic pet... tests run on the last PTR build 9757 showed a minor improvement on the DPS for the S-beast... I guess the wolf might be the sane option for everyone in the raid. (simply cause it does'nt get in the way like the devilsaur does)

Nooska · 04/07/09, 7:14 AM

I'm going to slowly kick myself for making 1 giant mistake.

I did not think about 2 important things; 1) I am using version 84 of the spreadsheet - which means I can't use it to predict how changes in 3.1. affect my choices. 2) I forgot glyph of Kill Shots existence - im not sure how this happened as I looked at wowhead's list of majors and minors respectively.

Anyway, you are completely correct about your points, and if I'm not mistaken that should even be an upgrade for me now (plugging it in, I'll just confirm that) - Aspect of the hawk + glyph is a ~200 dps upgrade with IAotH over endurance training - or ~5% for me personally.

This does confim my thoughts about serpent sting not being worth it for the few global cooldowns we win on it.

Regarding the trinket procs that was an issue with using EotB during BW with the possesed strength glyph, but it also does apply to the increased rate of autoshots.

--

Glyph of Mend Pet - has this been fixed to work with IMP yet (on the ptr)? if not we should add the caveat that it doesn't work with IMP (yet) and thus is "useless" if any points are put into IMP.

Later today (have a vets appointment shortly) I will play around with specs, I have some thoughts on synergy in a combinations that might be silly but work - will get back to that.

The poste spec puts the t2 floater point in Endurance Training - is there any reason that would make it more valuable there than Improved Aspect of the Monkey for instance? I am thinking the extra dodge is nice when we are kiting - without speccing directly for it.
My thoughts are along the line; that with multiple hunters BM hunters are the better choice for kiting as we only loose half our dps while kiting (being able to send out pet on the target) compared to.. well every ther kiting class that need to give up most of their dps. (SV hunters could possibly do okay damage from LnL procs off frost traps)

Nakaya_kilrogg · 04/07/09, 9:14 AM

On the PTR, how is BM compared to Survival damage for raids? I haven't gotten to see any WWS reports yet. I've really wanted to give BM a go again.

I really like the 53/11/7 build, but I'm unsure if I should go with 2/2 mend pet or 1/2 spirit bond, 1/2 mend pet. My healers rarely decurse pets, and they usually only get healed with a stray chain heal or CoH or somesuch. Anyone else run into this, and if so, what'd you decide?

Nooska · 04/07/09, 9:35 AM

As a raid officer myself I get very analretentive about our healers cleansing and healing hunter pets - as a consequence ours are getting very good at it (mostly).
I would suggest that you look into talking to your raid healer or dps officer (who should then talk to the healing officer) about it being a problem - espceially with beastmaster hunters. Of course they should not let a player character die to save a pet (because the pet has infinite combat resses available) but anything short of that is allowing a massive dps loss for the raid.

As a consequence I would suggest you go with 2/2 spirit bond. The 25% chance to cleanse means that you will, on average, wait 6 seconds for a cleanse to go through - most cleansable things are either deadly by then, or don't matter (when in a raid setting)

TrevvyTrev · 04/07/09, 11:10 AM

Splitting Spirit Bond/Imp Mend can be fine but you just have to test it. I'm not sure I agree with 6 seconds being too long to wait for a decurse (particularly if the alternative is not getting one at all), and the tradeoff is that you're only losing 5% healing done to you and your pet plus 1% total health every 10 seconds. Maybe the 25% chance to cleanse won't make a difference in raid environments often but by the same token it's hard to say that 5% healing taken/1% health regen makes a big difference either. Sometimes hedging your bet is perfectly acceptable.

Brughe · 04/07/09, 11:24 AM

Originally Posted by Rosamonde

This is an interesting idea. I have used Eyes of the Beast mainly as a way to fool around while waiting for the raid to start, but since the hunter remains in a "casting pose" while channeling it, I do not see how auto-shot could continue firing. Still, if the pet does enough damage during this time it could very well make up for the loss of hunter damage.

I see this more as a gimmick. If it is a valid DPS boost, it will only be really effective during Patchwerk type fights. The problem will arise in any boss fight that requires you to "not stand in bad stuff." Which is a lot of them nowadays. Maybe there are less in Ulduar. I've been lax on reading up on those fights.

Basically, imagine never realizing the benefits of Glyph of Possessed Beast over Glyph of Aspect of the Hawk because every time you kick in Eyes of the Beast and TBW, you have to cancel it to move out of red fire/blue fire/blizzard/death rays/red doomfire/blue doomfire/falling rocks/random green crap/etc. Or worse, switching to EotB and getting tunnel vision while your Hunter is burnt to a crisp behind you.

Edit: Man, I need to update my avatar.

Rosamonde · 04/07/09, 12:06 PM

Originally Posted by Nooska

Glyph of Mend Pet - has this been fixed to work with IMP yet (on the ptr)? if not we should add the caveat that it doesn't work with IMP (yet) and thus is "useless" if any points are put into IMP.

<snip>

The posted spec puts the t2 floater point in Endurance Training - is there any reason that would make it more valuable there than Improved Aspect of the Monkey for instance? I am thinking the extra dodge is nice when we are kiting - without speccing directly for it.
My thoughts are along the line; that with multiple hunters BM hunters are the better choice for kiting as we only loose half our dps while kiting (being able to send out pet on the target) compared to.. well every other kiting class that need to give up most of their dps. (SV hunters could possibly do okay damage from LnL procs off frost traps)

I had always regarded Aspect of the Monkey as being so useless for raiding that I never even considered putting a point in it, but you make a good point -- we do end up kiting a lot due to the Gluth fight. Can players dodge when hit from the back? I know bosses can, but I have very little experience meleeing.

I'll add a note to the OP about the Glyph of Mend Pet bug.

Kinetics · 04/07/09, 12:29 PM

In regards to whether EotB was worth it or not, I found it to be fairly useless. I did some testing on a Boss dummy yesterday in IF and my results were quite terrible. I would pop BW, and then cast Eotb for about 2 seconds, and proceed to DPS the dummy. You'd expect to get the 200% damage from Nooska's rough math yesterday, but in all actuality you do less than you'd think. I didn't have any strong figures to present due to the fact that they were embarassing. It was that bad. I'll continue to keep testing but I really think the EotB glyph is more "flare" than "fire."

TrevvyTrev · 04/07/09, 12:35 PM

Originally Posted by Rosamonde

I had always regarded Aspect of the Monkey as being so useless for raiding that I never even considered putting a point in it, but you make a good point -- we do end up kiting a lot due to the Gluth fight. Can players dodge when hit from the back? I know bosses can, but I have very little experience meleeing.

No, players can't dodge from the back, but you can get around this pretty easily with strafe techniques. I always put my floater in Improved Monkey for this reason, particularly once the bonus also applied to Dragonhawk. 1% more health isn't really noticeable in raid AoE situations, and in direct physical damage situations like kiting 2% dodge > 1% health.