Raiding with Beast Mastery in 3.3.3 and beyond - Page 31

Rosamonde · 01/26/10, 11:50 AM

I am in the process of updating the original post for 3.3 -- if anyone has things they especially think should be revised or added that aren't already updated, please comment. (I do intend to summarize the discussion regarding Rowan's.)

Questor · 01/26/10, 6:50 PM

Using the latest version of the spreadsheet (93g), I ran hours worth of various talents specs, pets, glyphs and buff combinations.

What I found a bit unbelievable was the major glyph selection for Beast Mastery spec of 53/11/7, of Hawk, Serpent Sting and Steady shot yielded the highest dps when the rotation was tested. The dps came out to be 8525.56 versus 8440.69 using the major glyph of Bestial Wrath (replaced by Hawk). After this, I tried a mixture of the various glyph combinations. All rotation tests showed low to mid 8400's. The rotation included Kill shot, Arcane shot, rapid fire, Serpent Sting and Steady Shot. Each time I added Multi-shot or Aimed shot into the rotation, dps went down even more, regardless of which of the aforementioned glyphs was used.

This was using the standard 25 man raid buffs with blackened dragonfin and flask of endless rage, wolf pet with 20 points (20th point in stamina over using it for 2 in bloodthirsty) and buffed with spiced mammoth treats. My hunter's gear was used (Zetath, Earthen Ring as of 1/25/10) - if anyone involved with development cares to run the numbers themselves.

The spreadsheet basically discounts the major glyph of Bestial Wrath in a large way. This glyph in conjunction with 3/3 in longevity reduces the Bestial Wrath cool down basically to half it's normal cool down timer. It was hard to believe this glyph would be such a bad choice, since the page 1 guide recommends it. I felt this was worth mentioning.

alienangel · 01/26/10, 9:01 PM

Beastial Wrath itself is a fairly lackluster spell since the last set of changes to it, so reducing its cooldown isn't all that useful anymore. You found that glyphing the 3 primary sources of damage to a BM hunter yields the highest damage. This isn't particularly surprising. Not using aimed at all might be slightly surprising.

Rosamonde · 01/26/10, 11:31 PM

Originally Posted by Questor

Using the latest version of the spreadsheet (93g), I ran hours worth of various talents specs, pets, glyphs and buff combinations.

The spreadsheet basically discounts the major glyph of Bestial Wrath in a large way. This glyph in conjunction with 3/3 in longevity reduces the Bestial Wrath cool down basically to half it's normal cool down timer. It was hard to believe this glyph would be such a bad choice, since the page 1 guide recommends it. I felt this was worth mentioning.

I wrote the part about glyphs before the changes to Bestial Wrath and the Beast Within that alienangel mentions -- looks like that part needs more review, so thanks for your comment.

I have not raided as BM since Ulduar came out and my guild needed me for Replenishment, but I am taking it back as my second spec and I wanted to update things for anyone who was interested.

Rezdan · 01/27/10, 12:12 AM

If you're finding that excluding Aimed/Multi results in higher dps, you may want to confirm that the spreadsheet isn't modelling you as going OOM. Additionally, you may want to check the expected damage of the three shots, Aimed/Multi/Steady, to really see why the spreadsheet is modelling using Aimed/Multi as DPS losses for your setup.

Zerlu · 01/27/10, 3:50 AM

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

This is the highest dpsing spec I've found so far using the gear that is available.

EDIT: Also, it shows Multi being a dps increase for me, it hits harder than Steady, which is pretty much the only requirement for our "rotation" these days.

Rosamonde · 01/28/10, 12:22 AM

Originally Posted by Rezdan

If you're finding that excluding Aimed/Multi results in higher dps, you may want to confirm that the spreadsheet isn't modelling you as going OOM. Additionally, you may want to check the expected damage of the three shots, Aimed/Multi/Steady, to really see why the spreadsheet is modelling using Aimed/Multi as DPS losses for your setup.

Adding Multi-shot into my rotation on the spreadsheet is good for about 100 more dps. Aimed Shot can be problematic since you have to find the extra talent points to get it. In my case, I have to take 2 from Imp Tracking and 2 from Focused Aim, so using Aimed Shot results in about a 120 dps loss.

Regarding glyphs, I have had time to try out the spreadsheet and I also find Hawk, Steady, and Serpent to have the best results -- I will change the OP accordingly.

Questor · 01/29/10, 3:07 PM

Beastial Wrath itself is a fairly lackluster spell since the last set of changes to it, so reducing its cooldown isn't all that useful anymore. You found that glyphing the 3 primary sources of damage to a BM hunter yields the highest damage. This isn't particularly surprising. Not using aimed at all might be slightly surprising.

This being true might merit the expenditure of points elsewhere than longevity. If Beast Mastery has become a lackluster cool down, then a talent tree like Zerlu has linked, yet move points out of longevity to something that significantly increases critical strike or plus "%" of a per shot damage or a plus "%" of overall damage may also result in higher dps. I will be playing with this on the spread sheet and see what happens.

I ran a quite a few simulations with the spreadsheet and come up with better than I had hoped. Using a spec of 52/14/5 , wolf pet talented with this ferocity spec a shot rotation that DID include mutli-shot looking like:
Shot Priority
1)Bestial Wrath
2)Kill Shot
3)Arcane Shot
4)Multi-Shot
5)Serpent Sting
6)Rapid Fire
7)Steady Shot

Gear used was the same as the tests I ran a few posts above, with the following exceptions added (got some new gear): Neck - Charge of the Demon Lord and Wrist - Scourge Hunter's Vambraces.

Personal food buff is: Blackened Dragonfin and elixir/flask is Flask of Endless Rage.

Final best dps: 8926.45! A vast improvement.

I put 2 points in invigorate. I took this as the pugs I get into using the daily /random end up moving at the speed of "faster than mana can regen" and I spend half of the instance on Viper.

*Apologies, I forgot some information last evening and transcribed another piece of information incorrectly. It was brought to my attention by a PM from another member.

Rosamonde · 01/29/10, 11:24 PM

Originally Posted by Questor

This being true might merit the expenditure of points elsewhere than longevity. If Beast Mastery has become a lackluster cool down, then a talent tree like Zerlu has linked, yet move points out of longevity to something that significantly increases critical strike or plus "%" of a per shot damage or a plus "%" of overall damage may also result in higher dps. I will be playing with this on the spread sheet and see what happens.

I thought his was an interesting idea, so I tried it in the spreadsheet with my gear.

I tried taking 2 points out of Longevity and putting them into each of the following (Note that 1 point must remain in the BM tree, and there is not a better place for it in this experiment than 1/3 Longevity.):
4/5 Imp Tracking
2/3 Imp Arcane Shot
2/3 Imp Hunter's Mark

None of them gave better results than 3/3 Longevity, and I was not able to find a better build for my current gear than this:

53/16/2

As you can see, I have taken 2/3 focused aim to fill out my hit rating; I found it very slightly better to take the points from Imp Tracking than from Mortal Shots, and I would expect the difference to continue to increase in favor of Mortal Shots as my crit goes up.

Bestial Wrath isn't what it used to be, but Longevity also affects Call of the Wild and Furious Howl (or other pet special), which are useful sources of damage for both hunter and pet.

Invigoration is a good choice if you are running out of mana -- I was testing in a raid situation and thus mana is not an issue.

fearstalker · 01/30/10, 12:48 AM

Originally Posted by DeavanSH

Based on both the steady shot damage and the randomness of the 2pc procs, I'm not sure that trying for a faster weapon for more procs from the 2pcT10 is worthwhile. I'd rather have the guaranteed larger hits from a slower weapon. Also, based on the spreadsheet (93f), my theoretical dps with the above weapons goes up as the base weapon speed gets slower.

I'll agree with you, but I think Rowan's is still a viable choice for those whose only other option is 232-lvl weapons. I've seen a ~80 dps increase from using Rowan's over the 232 heroic weapons.

Rosamonde · 01/30/10, 2:07 AM

Tinkering with the spreadsheet, 550 static ArPen seems to be the cut-off for BM to start thinking about using ArPen gems. They are a small upgrade after 550 ArPen, and scale up with more ArPen.

Also, it seems that about 3500 AP (with DragonHawk) is the ceiling for using AP gems -- above that and agility starts to be better. Given the gear available now even to non-raiders, it's probably not ever worth gemming with epic AP gems, since it would be such a short time until Agility would be better.

DeavanSH · 01/30/10, 9:37 AM

Originally Posted by Rosamonde

Tinkering with the spreadsheet, 550 static ArPen seems to be the cut-off for BM to start thinking about using ArPen gems. They are a small upgrade after 550 ArPen, and scale up with more ArPen.

When you were figuring this out, did you have anything equipped that procs ArP? If so, then the 550 number is relevant to having that ArP proc. Also, does your raid have someone providing the sunder armor (or equivalent ) debuff on the target? If not, this can affect when to start gemming ArP as well.

Also, it seems that about 3500 AP (with DragonHawk) is the ceiling for using AP gems -- above that and agility starts to be better. Given the gear available now even to non-raiders, it's probably not ever worth gemming with epic AP gems, since it would be such a short time until Agility would be better.

Actually, it's not so much a function of AP, but rather one of how much crit you have as well as AP. It takes a certain percentage of crit to guarantee full synergy with your pet. At high crit, the spreadsheet can show AP is better than agility. For my build (and gear), high crit seems to be in the 45 to 50 percent range unbuffed.

Basically what it boils down to is each person needs to check which is better for them of AP, ArP or agility. Or maybe it's a mixture of AP and agility.

Rosamonde · 01/30/10, 12:07 PM

I do not have any ArPen proccing trinkets, but yes, I was including full raid buffs -- that is a good point and I should mention it. I particularly did not want the point that BM hunters also benefit by switching to ArPen gems at a certain gear level to get lost in the shuffle, since the conventional wisdom one usually hears is that ArPen is for MM hunters and AP for BM hunters.

As for Attack Power, since Agility translates directly into AP on the char sheet, I thought using total AP would be a good way to take both into consideration. Crit level is a good point to bring up, however what I noticed happening with my own gear is that better gear makes agility better than straight attack power. When I was raiding Naxx at the beginning of Wrath, AP gems were a couple dps better than Agi gems, but now that I am raiding ICC 25, Agi gems are better. And if I manually add only 89 ArPen to my gear in the spreadsheet, ArPen gems start giving me more dps, though admittedly not a LOT more.

I am a huge advocate of using the spreadsheet for making these types of decisions -- I was looking more for a cut-off point where it would alert people that it was time to start considering a different gem type, but I need to make that much clearer!

Thanks for your comments.

Nooska · 01/30/10, 12:37 PM

Originally Posted by Rosamonde

Pet stats [updated 1.26.2010]
Hunter pets "inherit" the following stats from their owners:
Hit (100%) -- if the hunter is hit-capped (8% via a combination of gear and Focused Aim points), the pet will be melee hit-capped and spell hit-capped. In theory, the pet should also be expertise capped, however there is a bug whereby the hit from Focused Aim is not fully transferred to pet expertise. Hit from Focused Aim does transfer correctly.
Ranged Attack Power (22%) -- the new 3.1 pet talent Wild Hunt will increase this by 20%
Stamina (30%)
Armor (35%)
Magic resistances (40%) -- race-based magic school resistances are percent based and do not appear on the character sheet and thus presumably do not transfer to the pet

Wild Hunt increases the AP contribution by 30 % (not 20) and I would suggest a similar not on the stamina (where its 40%)

• Varance · 02/04/10, 2:58 AM

BM stuff that needs to be noted:

1) As of 3.3, Devilsaurs are now the same as all other pets - no stompy noise, no mega hitbox and no super large model with a full stack of MBite and BW.
2) BM hunters can cause some serious damage in Icecrown 25, especially on fights with any sort of movement. WOL of early Icecrown bosses, Patchwerk and Toravon. Troll, using a 53/14/4 build with a Devilsaur. AotB during BW/lust. Armory. Will have data from other bosses later on in the week.