By now most of you have seen the outraged reaction of many BM hunters to Frostheim’s article on “Can Beast Mastery Raid”. The response to the outrage has been to discredit is as illogical, factually wrong, and irresponsible to other players in a raid.

What I think everyone has missed is any serious discussion of why this is controversial in the first place. Why are so many people so firmly committed to their BM spec? We don’t see this much loyal dedication in almost any other “inferior” spec in any other class… Why?

We all need to remember that at its core, WoW is a game. For the most part, people choose a character class that, for whatever reason, appeals to them personally (be it for the character concept, or the playstyle, or whatever). To join in raiding, players are expected to work with in the constraints of their chosen character to do the best that they can possibly do. If you’re not doing the best you can with your character, you should endeavor to improve.

Why Play a Hunter?
In my opinion there are really two fundamentally different character concepts bundled into the Hunter class (and in Warcraft III they were totally different classes).

1. Shooter: this character concept appeals to people who want to blow big holes in things, and seems to disproportionately attract players who enjoy shooter games. Both MM and SV match the shooter concept, in different ways. Pets are incidental to this concept, more of an extra tool in the DPS box than a core reason to play. Those interested in the shooter aspect of hunters are likely fairly willing to spec BM if that’s the top spec, because it doesn’t prevent them from continuing to focus on the shooting. A stereotypical shooter loves guns…
2. Beasts: Another entirely different character concept is of a character who defeats enemies by taming an controlling fearsome beasts. To those interested in this concept, the whole point of playing a hunter is for the pets. In my case, this concept is what attracted me to WoW in the first place. A stereotypical Beastie loves animals…

I think the reason there is so much attachment to the BM spec is that it is in many ways a totally different character concept that is the reason many players chose a hunter in the first place.

The Limits on the DPS Race
It seems to be conventional wisdom that you pick the class you enjoy with the most, and then strive to excel in it. We’re not told to all switch over to play the current top DPS class, not just because it would take time to level a new toon, but because that seems a violation of a player’s right to choose the class they enjoy. If “Shooters” were told they must respect to being a melee hunter to top the DPS charts, a great many would protest. Likewise, when players who chose to play a hunter for the fearsome Beasts are told that their concept of the character is inferior, ineffective, and irresponsible, they are outraged. The DPS race is good to encourage raiders to excel in their chosen class, but in the case of hunters I believe there are really two classes in one. Forcing people to totally change their reason for playing is probably taking the DPS race too far…. but it would be good for the raid…

So Now What?
I think that conceptual difference in the Hunter class is why the ineffectiveness of BM is such a hot topic. Hopefully in Cataclysm Blizzard will recognize that people with very different interests play the hunter class, and will make more of an effort to make the class viable for the different players. Ideally, they’d give the BM spec more interesting pet abilities, rather than just have the BM pet as a mostly mindless DPS Machine. Of course, none of this is within the reach of the Mighty Frostheim to do anything about, unless we can convince him to write some powerful prayers for BM and send them to the Blizzard gods… But I hope all this clarifies why I think this has been such a sensitive topic.

Of Science and Dwarven Stout
So why are BM hunters angry at Frostheim? There’s a strong message in his most recent article (and several previous ones), that BM hunters should all respec to raid. In many cases, a skilled BM hunter can still be the top DPS slot in the raid. Could they do even more DPS in a different spec? Probably, but they certainly don’t deserve to be pressured or booted as long as they are more than upholding their end of the DPS bargain. When someone’s DPS is too low for your raid, pressure them, and if that doesn’t resolve it, boot them. That is the mentality of most guilds I know, but it doesn’t show up much in Frostheim’s writing. Science is supposed to be above influence from anyone’s opinion, but any good scientist knows that’s very rarely the case.

Holes in the Science
The other major problem with Frostheim’s most recent article is that it doesn’t really meet his own standards for rigorous science. Ideally, you’d resolve the BM DPS capabilities by finding the best BM hunter in the world and the best MM hunter in the world, gear and buff them equally, and then put them to work on a training dummy or a boss for hours and hours and hours… That seems a little hard to arrange. Barring that, we have two readily available data sets, each with their problems:
1. Actual data from the top hunter’s performance in each spec, available on WoWmeteronline. The problem is that this data is by no means unbiased. Since BM is currently the weakest raiding spec, the top 20 BM hunters are likely to also be the least hard-core raiders, and therefore also the least geared and the least attuned to squeezing out every last drop of DPS when compared to the top MM hunters.
2. Data from hunter spreadsheets, pitting the top MM spec against the top BM spec, in the same gear (and it would be wise to test this at several gear levels). Of course, this data has the weakness of assuming a perfect DPS world, but it eliminates many of the selection biases of wowmeteronline. Unfortunately, this source of data was largely ignored in Frostheim’s latest article. He says that BM is 20% behind on spreadsheets, but I find that hard to believe since in my tests BM is consistently within 10%, often within 5%.

If actual hunter data shows BM behind by 30%, but spreadsheets show them behind by 10% or less, it’s probably fair to assume that there are some unbalancing problems in the data set.

Parting Shots
Frostheim is a phenomenal asset to the hunter community, and I’ve dutifully read virtually everything he’s written about hunters. I think he’s fantastic as the new writer for Wow.com. But with the new and growing audience, I’d just like to request a little more openness to understanding and respecting different perspectives on why we should choose to play a hunter in the first place (versus whatever class tops the DPS charts), and under what conditions we should call for a class or spec to be effectively banned from raiding.

If you assume that they deal equal DPS to you, then you simply multiply the number of damage dealers (including tanks if you prefer) times 3%, and you’ll find out how much ‘additional dps’ you cause relative to you own dps. If the raid on average deals more dps than you, then it will be more favorable, if you’re the top dps, then it will be less.

Assuming you have 8 people dealing damage in the raid, who, on average, deal the same dps as you do, then you’ll deal 8*3=24% more overall damage.

So if you compare this to Frost’s 30% (assuming it’s correct for all hunters everywhere), and factor in the loss of Trushot Aura or Hunting Party, then no, switching purely for the dps increase would not be a good idea most of the time.

Sure, it’s good to use as an indication…but it’s also merely 1 measurement of data that gets compared, with a lot of variables remaining undefined.

And yes, the sad part of this is that the majority of the readers will view the article as ‘BM-ins’t viable’ as once they read the 30%, it gets burned into their mind.

(P.S. This isn’t directed at anyone here. Just an extra comment about the stupidity of posters I’ve noticed on wow.com)

I thought you may have sensationalised the loss of BM with the whole pants thing; so I dropped my pants (along with T9 bonus) for my MM spec (spreadsheets) which I then compared to the cookie cutter BM build.

Bindi MM: 6122dps
Bindi no pants MM: 5415dps
Bindi full gear set BM: 5183.2dps

I would like to ask though; if I don’t have a ret pally or arcane mage in my 10 man group, would it be better for me to go BM for the good of the raid?